Blood Brothers of Gor (38 page)

Cuwignaka looked at me, not speaking.

"But will you not fight for these women, even for reasons of vanity?" I asked.

"No," he said. He shook his head. "I do not want to fight. I cannot fight. I am sorry, my friend, Tatankasa. I cannot fight."

"I cannot make you couch a lance," I said. "I cannot put a knife into your hand."

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"I am sorry, Tatankasa," he said.

"Let us go," I said. "We must try to make the center of camp."

"It is the dance lodge," I said.

To our right was the great, circular brush lodge. It was some forthy feet in height. It enclosed a packed-down dancing space of some fifty feet in diameter. It was celinged with poles and brances. In the center of the lodge, visible now through a hole torn in the brush, was the tall, slim, peeled twice-forked pole which days ago, Winyela had felled. The parapernailia of the dance, with the exception of some long, narrow, braded ropes, had been removed from the pole. The pole itself had apparently been attacked with hatchets and knives. It was marked and gashed. From the sides of the dance lodge huge gouts of brush had been torn away. It was through these gaps that Yellow Knives had perhaps entered the lodge. Inside, in several places, the dust was bloodstained. In places, marked by successions of linear stains, and marks in the dust, bodies had apparently been dragged from the lodge. This, persumably, would have been done later by Kaiila.

"This place, as I understand it," I said, "is holy to your people. It has been desecrated."

Cuwignaka shook his head. "I cannot fight," he said.

"Do not look down," I warned Cuwignaka. "It will disturb you."

"Tatankasa!" he said.

"I have seen it," I said. "Come along."

But Cuwignaka knelt down among the dead. He lifted the small body in his arms.

"Let us go," I said.

"It is only a child." he said.

Wasnapohdi averted her eyes. She looked sick. It was not pretty.

"We knew him," said Cuwignaka.

"There is the mother," I said.

"We knew him!" said Cuwignaka.

"Yes," I said. He had been a lad from among the Kaiila. He was well known to both Cuwignaka and myself. We had thrown the hoop for him many times, he then firing his small arrows through it. In the camp he had been known by the manes of Hala and Owopte. 'Hala' is Kailla for the Gorean

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hinti, which are small, active insects. They resemble fleas but are not parasitic. The boy had been small for his age, and energetic. There is no simple translation for 'Owopte' but, literally, it means the place from which a turnip is dug. He had used to go out with his mother to dig turnips when he had been a little boy. That was a pet name which she had given him. He had been fond of the vegetable. He had not lived long enough to choose a suitable adult name for himself.

"He is dead," said Cuwignaka.

"Yes," I said.

"Why have they dont this to him?" asked Cuwignaka, rocking the body in his arms.

"I do not know," I said. I could understand, to some extent, the stripping, the cutting and slashing, the mutiliation, the cutting and uprooting of bloody trophies, where male adults, warriors, were concerneed. In a sense it was a celebration of relief, of life, of victory, of jubilation and triumph. It did not make much sense to me where women or children were concerned. Confirming my suspicions in this matter, it might be noted that many warriors will usually reserve such grisly attentions, with the exception of scalping, for adult, enemy males. Too, such things are more common with younger warriors than mature warriors. There ar emany putative expanations for these prctices, having to do with such things as insulting the enemy, terrorizing others and even delaying or interfering with the deceased's entrance into, or activities within, the medicine world, but I suspect that the deepest, least rationalized explanations lie in the vicinity of the ventilation and expression of emotions such as hatred, relief and elation, of joy, gladness and triumph. Such practices among most peoples are not as institutionalized as among the red savages but I think that those who know war, on whatever remote feilds, will not find themselves unfamiliar with the counterparts of such practices. They are not restricted to the grasslands east of the Thentis mountains. They are not unknown outside of the Barrens.

"He is only a child," said Cuwignaka, rocking the body, pressing his cheek against the affronted head, the exposed bone, the lacerated, bloody skin. "Why have they done this?"

"I do not know," I said.

"Yellow Knives have done this," he said.

"Maybe those called the kinyanpi," I said. "I do not know."

"Enemies have done this," said Cuwignaka.

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"Yes," I said.

Cuwignaka put the body down, carefully. He then looked at me. "Teach me to kill," he said.

Chapter 23

CUWIGNAKA AND THE SLAVE

"Down," I whispered.

We lay behind the lodge. Five Yellow Knives, in single file, astride kaiila, moved quickly past. As the last one passed I stepped out behind them. The strike must be below the left shoulcer blade. It must be made swiftly enough for the carrying force of the small bow not to be dissipated; it must be made from a distance sufficient, given the spacing of the riders and the sound of the kaiila's paws, to cover the sound of the string. I then fitted another arrow to the string.

"They will not know for a time that they are now only four," I said.

"Leave it," I said. But Cuwignaka was at the body. "I do not want it," I said. Cuwignaka thrust it in his own belt, dark and bloddy against the white cloth of the dress he wore.

"We need kaiila," I said.

"We will get them," said Cuwignaka.

"Oh!" cried the woman, one of two, nude and bound, sitting on the ground, their legs widely apart.

The Yellow Knife with them whirled about but only to meet Cuwignaka's lance.

The woman screamed. Cuwignaka jerked his lance free. She began to sob, frightened, hysterical. "Be silent, Slave," snarled Cuwignaka. She looked up at him, frightened, sobbing. He struck her alongside the head with the shaft of his lance. Such things slaves understand. Her outburst might have alerted other Yellow Knives. Her blubbering too, might convey to them that something unusual had occurred. She lay on her side in the drt. She looked up once at Cuwignaka and then, quickly, averted her eyes from his. He was looking down at her, angrily. She trembled. Whereas a free woman may often make a man angry with umpunity, she being lofty and free, this latitude is seldom extended to the slave. When a slave makes a man angry she knows that there may very

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well be consequences to her action, that she, vulnerable and owned, subject to discipline and punishment, may ver well be held to account, and, indeed, is quite likely to be held to account, and strictly, for any dissatisfaction which she may have engendered.

"There are no kaiila here," I said. I was not clear why Cuwignaka had stopped here.

"This either has been, or is intended to be, a collection point," said Cuwignaka. He gestured to the two women, one sitting on the ground, her legs widely apart, the other lying on her side, her arms, too, in their particular tie, largely between her legs.

"You think, then," I said, "that girls are either to be brought to this place, or are to be taken from this place?"

"Yes," said Cuwignaka, "and judging from the tie, which does not suggest that they are soon to be marched away, I would think they are being brought to this place."

"I see," I said. Thusly, presumably men would come with kaiila, either to bring more women, or to herd these away. We, then, would be waiting for the. "We should not be waiting too closely to this spot," I said, "for those coming in may be looking for the guard."

"We will look for tracks," said Cuwignaka. "I do not think it will be difficult."

"It is interesting that there was a guard here," I said. There had not been one at the other point.

"That indicates, I think," said Cuwignaka, "that we may, at last, be closer to the center of Kaiila resistance."

"It is some five Ahn until dark," I said.

"By that time it is my hope to have kaiila and join with the resistance," said Cuwignaka.

I nodded. If a flight from the camp, with refugees, was to be made, persumably it would be most effectively conducted after dark.

"You should be sitting up," said Cuwignaka to the girl lying on her side. The side of her face bore a long welt from where she had been struck with the lance shaft. "It will look more natural."

"Yes, Master," she whispered.

Cuwignaka looked at me, puzzled, and then smiled. How naturally the female had used the experession 'Master' to him.

"I think you are right about the tie," I said.

"Yes," he said. We looked at the two women, now both sitting, with their legs apart. It is an efficient tie. It is known to

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the slavers of the cities, and to the men of the cities, of course, as well as to the savages of the Barrens. The girl is made to sit down, with her legs apart. She is then made to put her arms inside her legs. The left wrist is then taken under the left leg and placed against the outside of the left ankle, where, on the outside of the ankle, it is tied tightly in place. The right wrist is then treated similarly, passing under the right leg and being tied tightly on the outside of the right ankle. This makes the girl quite helpless. It also makes it impossible for her to close her legs.

Neither of the girls dared to meet our eyes. They looked down, frightened.

The conjecture of Cuwignaka with respect to their tie and its significance was as follows; Normally, when a woman is brought to a collection point or holding area she is either herded there or led there on a tether. In either case her legs are free. Since her wrists will usually have been bound behind her back at the time of her caputre, partiularly if she is a new capture, all that remains to be done in that holding area, thus, is to throw her to the ground and put her in a quick ankle-tie. This ankle tie, then, if she is to be moved in the near future, may swiftly be removed and she, already handbound, is promptly read again for the tether or the blows of her herder. The moe elaborate ties of the two girls at this point suggested, then, that women were being brought to this point, rather than being taken from it. Fore example, to take a woman from this point would require two seperate operations rather than one. She would have to be freed of her present bonds and then have her hands retied. The ties of the women at this point suggested, too, that they were being readied not for an imminent transfer to another location but for the pleasure of warriors. Their ties, thus, were an indication of the confidence and arrogance of the enemy.

Cuwignaka knelt beside the body of the fallen Yellow Knife. He drew forth his knife. the bound women shuddered. Then they, as WAsnapohdi, looked away.

"I think you had best dispose of our friend there," I said, indicating the Yellow Knife.

Cuwignaka nodded. I di dnot much care to look at it, particularly after Cuwignaka had finished with it. Too, if other Yellow Knives should approach the area it scarcely seemed appropriate to ahve it lying about.

In a moment Cuwignaka had returned.

I saw no sign of approaching Yellow Knives.

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He looked down at the woman who had screamed, and cried, she whom he had silenced with the command of a master and blow to the side of the face.

He put the point of his lance under her chin and lifted her head. She was terrified. I could see that he was still angry. The point of his lance, dipped, aligned then with the beauty of her soft, bared breasts. Then the point ws raised again, lodging itself again under her chin, holding her head up again, cruelly, that she must look at him.

"Forgive me, Master," she whispered. There was a drop of blood at her chin.

I myself did not blame her for crying out. She had been frightened. She had been startled. Too, her weeping had been uncontrollable. She had been only a blubbering slave. I wondered if he would kill her.

"Forgive me, Master," she begged.

He looked down at her, angrily. Then he withdrew the lance point from her chin.

RElieved of its pressure she put herself to her back in the dirt before him. She looked up at him, frightened. "Please, forgive me Master," she begged.