Nomads of Gor (69 page)

      
with the Thousands sweeping over the hills, I saw the stan-

      
dard of the Yellow Bow, and on the right, flying forward

      
with the hurtling Thousands, its leather streaming behind its

      
pole, I saw the standard of the Three-Weighted Bola.

        
"Katain!" screamed Harold, hugging me. "Kassars!"

       
I stood dumbfounded on the planking and saw the two

       
great wedges of the Kataii and the Kassars close like tongs

       
on the trapped Paravaci, taking them in the unprotected

       
flanks, crushing the ranks before them with the weight of

       
their charge. And even the sky seemed dark for a moment

       
as, from the left and right, thousands upon thousands of

       
arrows fell like dark rain among the startled, stumbling,

       
turning Paravaci.

        
"We might help," remarked Harold.

        
'Yes!" I cried.

       
"Korobans are slow to think of such matters," he re-

       
marked.

       
I turned to the men. "Open the wagons!" I cried. "To your

       
animals!"

       
And in an instant it seemed the wagon lashing kind been

       
cut by quivas and our hundreds of warriors, the pitiful

       
remnant of our two Thousands, swept forth upon the Parava-

       
ci, riding as though they had been fresh rested and ready,

       
shouting the wild war cry of the Tuchuks.

       
It was not until late that afternoon that I met with Hakim-

       
ba of the Kataii and Conrad of the Kassars. On the field we

       
met and, as comrades in arms, we embraced one another.

"We have our own wagons," said Hakimba, "but yet we are of the Wagon Peoples."
              

   
"It is so, too, with us," said Conrad, he of the Kassars.
   

 
"I regret only," I said, "that I sent word to Kamchak and
 

 
even now he has withdrawn his men from Turia and is

 
returning to the wagons."

 
"No," said Hakimba, "we sent riders to Turia even as we

 
left our own camp. Kamchak knew of our movements long

 
before you."

 
"And of ours," said Conrad, "for we too sent him word

 
thinking it well to keep him informed in these matters."

 
"For a Kataii and a Kassar," said Harold, "you two are

 
not bad fellows." And then he added. "See that you do not

 
ride off with any of our bask or women."

 
"The Paravaci left their camp largely unguarded," said

 
Hakimba. "Their strength was brought here."

  
I laughed.

 
"Yes," said Conrad, "most of the Paravaci bask are now in

 
the herds of the Kataii and Kassars."

  
"Reasonably evenly divided I trust," remarked Hakimba.

   
"I think so," said Conrad. "If not, we can always iron
   

 
matters out with a bit of bask raiding."

 
"That is true," granted Hakimba, the yellow and red scars

 
wrinkling into a grin on his lean, black face.

 
"when the Paravaci those who escaped us return to

 
their wagons," remarked Conrad, "they will find a surprise in

 
store for them."

  
"Oh?" I inquired.

 
"We burned most of their wagons those we could," said

 
Hakimba."

  
"And their goods and women?" inquired Harold.

 
"Those that pleased us both of goods and women," re-

 
marked Conrad, "we carried off of goods that did not

 
please us, we burned them of women that did not please us,

 
we left them stripped and weeping among the wagons."

 
"This will mean war," I said, "for many years among the

 
Wagon Peoples."

 
"No," said Conrad, "the Paravaci will want back their

 
bask and women and perhaps they may have them for a

 
price."

  
"You are wise," said Harold.

 
"I do not think they will slay bask or join with Turians

 
again," said Hakimba.

  
I supposed he was right. Later in the afternoon the last of

        
the Paravaci had been cleared from the Tuchuk wagons,

        
wherever they might be found. Harold and I sent a rider

        
back to Kamchak with news of the victory. Following him, in

        
a few hours, would be a Thousand each from the Kataii and

        
the Kassars, to lend him what aid they might in his work in,

        
Turia.

       
In the morning the warriors remaining of the two Thou"

       
sands who had ridden with Harold and I would, with the help

       
of other Tuchuks surviving among the wagons, move the

       
wagons and the bask the field. Already the bask were

       
growing uneasy at the smell of death and already the grass

       
about the camp was rustling with the movements of the tiny

       
brown prairie arts, scavengers, come to feed. Whether, after

       
we had moved the wagons and bask some pasangs away, we

       
should remain there, or proceed toward the pastures this side

       
of the Ta-Thassa Mountains, or return toward Turia, was not

       
decided. In the thinking of both Harold and myself, that

       
decision was properly Kamchak's. The Kataii main force and

       
the Kassar main force camped separately some pasangs from

       
the Tuchuk camp and the field and would, in the morning,

       
return to their own wagons. Each had exchanged riders who,

       
from time to time, would report to their own camp from that

       
of the other. Each had also, as had the Tuchuks, set their

       
own pickets. Neither wished the other to withdraw secretly

       
and do for them what they together had done for the

       
Paravaci, and what the Paravaci had attempted to do to the

       
Tuchuks. It was not that they, on this night, truly distrusted I

       
one another so much as the fact that a lifetime of raiding

       
and war had determined each to be, as a simple matter of

       
course, wary of the other.

       
I myself was anxious to return to Turia as soon as it could

       
be well managed. Harold, willingly enough, volunteered to

       
remain in the camp until the commander of a Thousand

       
could be sent from Turia to relieve him. I appreciated this

       
very much on his part, for I keenly wished to return to Turia

       
as soon as it would be at all practical I had pressing and ~

       
significant business yet unfinished behind its walls.
   

         
I would leave in the morning.

         
That night I found Kamchak's old wagon, and though it

       
had been looted, it had not been burned.

        
There was no sign of either Aphris or Elizabeth, either

        
about the wagon, or in the overturned, broken sleen cage in

        
which, when I had last seen them, Kamchak had confined

        
them. I was told by a Tuchuk woman that they had not been

                    
in the cage when the Paravaci had struck but rather that

                     
Aphris had been in the wagon and the barbarian, as she
   

           
        
referred to Miss Cardwell, had been sent to another wagon,

                   
the whereabouts she did not know. Aphris had, according to
  

                    
the woman, fallen into the hands of the Paravaci who had
  

                   
looted Kamchak's wagon; Elizabeth's fate she did not know;
 

                  
I gathered, of course, from the fact that Elizabeth had been

                     
sent to another wagon that Kamchak had sold her. I won-
   

                   
dered who her new master might be and hoped, for her sake,

                   
that she would well please him. She might, of course, have

                 
also fallen, lice Aphris, into the hands of the Paravaci. I was

                   
bitter and sad as I looked about the interior of Kamchak's

                      
wagon. The covering on the framework had been torn in

                     
several places and the rugs ripped or carried away. The

                     
saddle on the side had been cut and the quivas had been
   

                   
taken from their sheaths. The hangings were torn down, the
  

                    
wood of the wagon scratched and marred. Most of the gold
   

                    
and jewels, and precious plate and cups and goblets, were

     
              
missing, except where here and there a coin or stone might

                 
lie missed at the edge of the wagon hides or at the foot of

were gone and those that were not had been shattered

against the floor, or against the wagon poles, leaving dark

stains on the poles and on the hides behind them. The floor

was littered with broken glass. Some things, of little or no
 

worth, but which I remembered fondly, were still about.

There was a brass ladle that Aphris and Elizabeth had used

 
in cooking and a tin box of yellow Turian sugar, dented in

now and its contents scattered; and the large, gray leathery
 

object which I had upon occasion seen Kamchak use as a
       

stool, that which he had once kicked across the floor for my

 
inspection; he had been fond of it, that curiosity, and would
     

 
perhaps be pleased that it had not been, like most of his
  

 
things, carried away in the leather loot sacks of Paravaci