Vagabonds of Gor (26 page)

"More torches!" called another fellow.

I tried to cry out, to scream against the gag. I tried to work the wadding, the packing, from my mouth, but it was held back, over the tongue, deeply, firmly, in place by the binding. I tried frenziedly to loosen, to move, to dislodge the binding, rubbing the side of my face in the sand. Naught availed. I tried to attract attention, but none paid me attention. I could make only tiny noises. My tongue ached. The side of my face burned. I was covered with sand and sweat. Another beast crawled by, its long body lifted a few inches from the sand.

"Light more torches!" I heard.

I lay back, miserable, in the sand. The bar now, housing its menagerie of confused beasts, its numbers of angry, frightened men, blazed with light.

Fools, I wept silently, to myself, fools, fools.

I tried to dig myself down, lower into the sand.

In an instant I heard the first strike, a sound like a fist striking a chest, and saw a fellow reeling among the tharlarion. In a moment there were other sounds, similar. I saw a man raise his hands, his torch lifted eccentrically, then lost, turn and fall. Then like wind, swift, everywhere, as though the air were alive, shafts, in flights, from all sides, sprung from the darkness of the marsh, swept the bar.

"Down!" cried a voice, that of the officer. "Down! Take cover!"

Men were screaming.

"Put out the torches!" screamed the officer.

"Aiii!" cried a fellow.

"Down!" screamed the officer. "Down!"

"The tharlarion!" protested a man. Then he had been felled, falling among the beasts.

"Put out the torches!" screamed the officer. He himself had discarded his.

Arrows sped across the bar.

Tharlarion reared up, sometimes feet from the sand, their bodies, too, struck by arrows.

Torches, swiftly, men crying out with misery, began to be extinguished.

"Down!" cried the officer. "Down!"

I saw one fellow throw back his head in terror and scream, his torch clutched in both hands. He feared to retain it, and was terrified to let it go. Then he stood very still, and then fell forward, among the tharlarion, the arrow of temwood, fletched with the feathers of the Vosk gull, in his back. I saw another fellow, too, hesitate, confused, then struck by an arrow. Better would it have been for him, too, had he obeyed orders promptly.

"Down!" cried the officer. "Take cover!"

"Aiii!" screamed a man.

"Kill tharlarion!" called the officer.

"I cannot see!" cried a man.

"Take cover behind them!" called the officer.

I heard a hideous scream.

"Down! Down!" screamed the officer. "Get down! Dig into the sand!"

Then the arrows, I think, stopped. The bar, that island of sand in the delta, was dark. I heard some of the beasts moving about. Most, however, confused, not now troubled by the men, the torches, seemed to remain much where they were. I turned on my side, as I could. This would narrow the width of my body. Then, after a moment or two, I heard the sudden bellowing, again, the hissing and squealing, of tharlarion. Some began to move about, again, to leave the bar, to reenter the water.

The arrows, for an Ehn or so, descended unto the island, like rain. I heard one drop into the sand a yard or so from me. It would be almost upright. In a bit no more arrows fell. Arrows, of tern wood, like the Ka-la-na wood of their bows, not native to the delta, are precious to the rencers. They seldom fire unless they have a favorable target. Accordingly, like the men of the Barrens, they will often go to great lengths to approach an enemy closely. In the case of the rencers this is to conserve arrows. In the case of the men of the Barrens some think this is connected with their smaller, less powerful bow. Others think it has to do primarily with the desire of the men of the Barrens for glory, having to do with the counting of coup, and such.

I was once in the Barrens. Although it is difficult to comment on such cultural matters, the origins of which are often obscure, I note that the two explanations are not incompatible. The small bow, incidentally, is designed in such a way that it may be fired, shifting rapidly from side to side, from the back of a racing kaiila. I then, after a time, heard various tharlarion leave the bar, returning to the marsh. In two or three Ahn it became dawn. The rencers had gone, at least for the time.

Chapter 15 - WE CONTINUE WESTWARD

Again I struggled westward in the marsh, gagged, my hands manacled before me, tied at my waist, my body pulling against the harness. Too, I was now hooded. It had been a supposition of my keeper that I might, somehow, be able to communicate, perhaps by glances or such, with rencers. Perhaps, too, they now desired to conceal from me the wretchedness of their state. So I struggled ahead, closed in the hood, manacled, harnessed, drawing the weighty raft through the marsh, through the rence, through the mud, now with several men upon it, some wounded and sick, little more, if anything, than a beast of burden, a despised beast subject to the frequent blows, the lashings, of an impatient, hostile master.

It was now four days after the incident of the drive of the tharlarion.

We had continued to move west.

Rencers had now chosen to pick their targets with care. Sometimes Ahn would pass, and men would think themselves secure. Then an arrow would dart forth from the rence, the bowman unseen, his presence perhaps not even suspected, and another man, perhaps silently, would sink into the marsh. The officer no longer cared to assign men to point positions. Too often these scouts and flankers, and rear guards, failed to return. Now the men of Ar, I gathered, trod together, for many seemed close about. I think many from other columns, even, with their own tales of woe and terror, may have joined ours, or caught up with us. Perhaps they had been gradually moved toward us, by the rencers, in effect, their herdsmen.

I wondered if many wished, somehow, if only half consciously, to use his fellows for cover. "Lines!" I had heard, often enough. "Lines!" I had supposed then that they must have again formed lines, now doubtless, given their exhaustion, staggering, straggling lines, yet lines that would provide at least an isolation, a separation, of targets. I could imagine weary, terrorized men looking fearfully to the left and right. Everywhere the rence would seem the same. As for myself I could concern myself with little but the weight of the raft, my footing, and the blows which drove me.

"Glory to Ar!" cried out a man, somewhere behind me and to my left.

"Glory to Ar!" wept others.

Bit by bit, from the reports of men from other units, sometimes coming across us, sometimes found wandering in the marsh, sometimes half mad, we had been able to build up a picture of what was occurring in the delta. It was not difficult to overhear these things, at night, and during the march. The rear column, interestingly, had been the first to break, but its retreat had been stopped by rencers, apparently in great numbers. The arrows of tem wood, it seemed, had chosen to close the return to the east. The rear column, then, had fled deeper into the delta.

"They want to keep you in the delta," I had told the officer two nights ago, when unhooded, ungagged, to be fed. "They want you here, all the more at their mercy, where they may deal with you at their leisure, and as they please!"

Labienus had looked at me, not speaking.

"You must try to break out of the delta!" I had said.

He had not responded.

"But what shall we do, Captain?" asked a man.

"We continue west," had said Labienus.

Other reports soon began to trickle in. Two columns had been decimated in rencer attacks. Hundreds of men had perished in quicksand. Many of these had apparently been lured into the mire by rencers who had permitted themselves to be seen, and pursued, rencers who doubtless knew their way through the area, perhaps even drawing up safe-passage markers behind them. Others had fallen to the attacks of tharlarion and the marsh shark, which becomes particularly aggressive early in the morning and toward dusk, its common feeding times. Sickness and infections, too, were rampant. Hunger, exposure, sunstroke, and dysentery were common. There were many desertions. Perhaps some of the deserters might find their way from the delta. One did not know. And always it seemed the rencers were about, like sleen prowling the flanks of a herd.

"Cursed rencers!" I heard a man scream. "Cursed rencers!"

"Stay down!" someone called to him. "Do not stand so!"

"You will unsettle the craft," said another.

"Cursed rencers!" he screamed again. Then I heard a cry of pain.

"It came from there!" cried a man.

"I saw nothing!" cried a man.

I heard a body fall into the water.

"From there!" cried the fellow, again.

"Hurry!" cried a man.

I heard metal unsheathed. I heard men wading to the right.

"Fulvius! Fulvius!" cried a fellow.

"He is dead," said a voice.

I heard a cry of anguish.

I had stopped, and the column, too, I think, as a whole, had stopped. I did not, at least, hear men moving in the water.

There was not much noise, only the cry of a marsh gant.

We waited.

In few moments I heard some men approaching. "We found nothing," one said.

"Lines!" I heard. "Lines!"

"I will avenge you, Fulvius!" I heard a man cry. I heard, too, metal drawn.

"Come back!" I heard. "Come back!"

"Lines!" I heard. "Lines!"

"Let him go," said a man, wearily.

"Shields right!" I heard. Normally the shield, of course, is carried on the left arm, most warriors being right handed. The shields were now to be shifted to the right arm, for that was the direction from which had come the arrow. There might be rencers, too, of course, on the left. But they knew that they were on the right.

I heard the whip snap again behind me. I then, and I gather, too, the rest of the column, began again to move forward.

"Keep the lines!" I heard. "Keep the lines!"

We did hear, an Ehn or so later, a long, single wailing cry from the marsh. It came from behind us, from the right.

Chapter 16 - IT IS QUIET

"Cos may not be in the delta," said the officer.

"I do not think she is," I said.

No fires were lit. There was little noise.

"I have tortured myself," said the officer, "particularly of late, considering whether or not the things you have spoken to me might be true."

"I am pleased you have considered them," I said.

"It has been difficult of late not to consider them," he said.

"I would suppose so," I said.

"Even though they be the utterances of a squirming spy," he said, bitterly.

"Even if the motivations for the thoughts which I have confided to you were purely self-regarding," I said, "which, under the circumstances, I think, would be understandable, it was nonetheless appropriate that you consider their plausibility."

"Would you teach me duty?" he asked.

"No," I said. "I think you are much concerned with it."