Nomads of Gor (6 page)

   
"Let us fight," I suggested.

   
 
Angrily the Tuchuk pulled back on the reins of the kaiila,

   
causing it to rear, snarling, pawing at the sky. "And willingly

   
would I do so, Koroban sleep," he spit out. "Pray thou to

   
Priest-Kings that the lance does not fall to me!"

   
I did not understand this.

   
He turned his kaiila and in a bound or two swung it about

   
in the midst of his fellows.

   
Then the Kassar approached me.

   
"Koroban," said he, "did you not fear our lances?"

   
"I did," I said.

   
"But you did not show your fear," said he.

    
I shrugged.

   
"Yet," said he, "you tell me you feared." There was

   
wonder on his face.

   
I looked away.

   
"That," said the rider, "speaks to me of courage."

   
 
We studied each other for a moment, sizing one another

   
up. Then he said, "Though you are a dweller of cities, a

   
vermin of the walls, I think you are not unworthy, and thus

   
I pray the lance will fall to me."

   
He turned his mount back to his fellows.

   
 
They conferred again for a moment and then the warrior

   
of the Katau approached, a lithe, strong proud man, one in

   
whose eyes I could read that he had never lost his saddle, nor

   
turned from a foe.

   
 
His hand was light on the yellow bow, strung taut. But no

   
arrow was set to the string.

   
"Where are your men?" he asked.

   
"I am alone," I said.

    
The warrior stood in the stirrups, shading his eyes.

    
"Why have you come to spy?" he asked.

    
"I am not a spy," I said.

    
"You are hired by the Turians," he said.

    
"No," I responded.

    
"You are a stranger," he said.

    
"I come in peace," I said.

    
"Have you heard," he asked, "that the Wagon Peoples slay

    
strangers?"

    
"Yes," I said, "I have heard that."

    
"It is true," he said, and turned his mount back to his

    
fellows.

    
Last to approach me was the warrior of the Paravaci, with

   
his hood and cape of white fur, and the glistening broad

   
necklace of precious stones encircling his throat.

   
He pointed to the necklace. "It is beautiful, is it not?" he

   
asked.

   
"Yes," I said.

   
 
"It will buy ten bosks," said he, "twenty wagons covered

   
with golden cloth, a hundred she-slaves from Turia."

   
I looked away.

   
"Do you not covet the stones," he prodded, "these riches?"

   
"No," I said.

   
Anger crossed his face. "You may have them," he said.

   
"What must I do?" I asked.

   
"Slay me!" he laughed.

    
I looked at him steadily. "They are probably false stones,"

    
I said, "amber droplets, the pearls of the Vosk sorp, the

    
polished shell of the Tamber clam, glass colored and cut in

    
Ar for trade with ignorant southern peoples."

    
The face of the Paravaci, rich with its terrible furrowed

    
scars, contorted with rage.

    
He tore the necklace from his throat and flung it to my

    
feet.

    
"Regard the worth of those stones!" he cried.
 
I fished the necklace from
    
                             

    
the dust with the point of my sword, it in the sun. It hung like a belt of light, sparkling with a spectrum of riches hundred merchants.

   
"Excellent," I admitted, handing it back to him on the tip

   
of the spear.

   
Angrily he wound it about the pommel of the saddle.

   
"But I am of the Caste of Warriors," I said, "of a high city

   
and we do not stain our spears for the stones of men not,

   
even such stones as these."

   
The Paravaci was speechless.

   
"You dare to tempt me," I said, feigning anger, "as if I

   
beyond the dreams of a man, were of the Caste of Assassins or a common
           
   
thief with his dagger in the night." I frowned at him. "Beware," I
  
warned,

  
"lest I take your words as insult."

  
The Paravaci, in his cape and hood of white fur, with the

  
priceless necklace wrapped about the pommel of his saddle,

  
sat stiff, not moving, utterly enraged. Then, furiously, the

  
scars wild in his face, he sprang up in the stirrups and lifted

  
both hands to the sky. "Spirit of the Sky," he cried, "let the

  
lance fall to motto mel" Then abruptly, furious, he wheeled

  
the kaiila and joined the others, whence he turned to regard

  
me.

  
  
As I watched, the Tuchuk took his long, slender lance and

  
thrust it into the ground, point upward. Then, slowly, the

  
four riders began to walk their mounts about the lance,

  
watching it, right hands free to seize it should it begin to fall.

  
The wind seemed to rise.

   
 
In their way I knew they were honoring me, that they had

  
respected my stand in the matter of the charging lances, that

  
now they were gambling to see who would fight me, to whose

  
weapons my blood must flow, beneath the paws of whose

  
kaiila I must fall bloodied to the earth.

  
I watched the lance tremble in the shaking earth, and saw

  
the intentness of the riders as they watched its Lightest

  
movement. It would soon fall.

  
  
I could now see the herds quite clearly, making out indi-

  
vidual animals, the shaggy humps moving through the dust,

  
see the sun of the late afternoon glinting off thousands of

  
horns. Here and there I saw riders, darting about, all

  
mounted on the swift, graceful kaiila. The sun reflected from

  
the horns in the veil of dust that hung over the herds was

  
quite beautiful.

  
The lance had not yet fallen.

  
  
Soon the animals would be turned in on themselves, to mill

  
together in knots, until they were stopped by the shaggy walls

  
of their own kind, to stand and grew until the morning. The

  
wagons would, of course, follow the herds. The herd forms

  
both vanguard and rampart for the advance of the wagons.

  
  
The wagons are said to be countless, the animals without

  
number. Both of these claims are, of course, mistaken, and

  
I the Ubars of the Wagon Peoples know well each wagon and

  
the number of branded beasts in the various herds; each herd

  
is, incidentally, composed of several smaller herds, each

|
 
watched over by its own riders. The bellowing seemed now to

  
come from the sky itself, like thunder, or from-the horizon,

  
like the breaking of an ocean into surf on the rocks of the

  
shore. It was like a sea or a vast natural phenomenon slowly

 
 
approaching. Such indeed, I suppose, it was. Now, also, for

  
the first time, I could clearly smell the herd, a rich, vast,

  
fresh, musky, pervasive odor, compounded of trampled grass

  
and torn earth, of the dung, urine and sweat of perhaps more

  
than a minion beasts. The magnificent vitality of that smell,

  
so offensive to some, astonished and thrilled me; it spoke to

  
me of the insurgence and the swell of life itself, ebullient,

  
raw, overflowing, unconquerable, primitive, shuffling, smell-

  
ing, basic, animal, stamping, snorting, moving, an avalanche

  
of tissue and blood and splendor, a glorious, insistent, invinci-

  
ble cataract of breathing and walking and seeing and feeling

  
on the sweet, flowing, windswept mothering earth. And it was

  
in that instant that I sensed what the bask might mean to the

  
Wagon Peoples.

  
"Ho!" I heard, and spun to see the black lance fall and

   
scarcely had it moved but it was seized in the fist of the

   
scarred Tuchuk warrior.

  
  
The Tuchuk warrior lifted the lance in triumph, in the

  
same instant slipping his fist into the retention knot and

  
kicking the roweled heels of his boots into the silken flanks of

  
his mount, the animal springing towards me and the rider in

  
the same movement, as if one with the beast, leaning down

  
from the saddle, lance slightly lowered, charging.

  
  
The slender, flexible wand of the lance tore at the seven-

  
layered Gorean shield, striking a spark from the brass rim

  
binding it, as the man had lunged at my head.

  
I had not cast the spear.

  
I had no wish to kill the Tuchuk.

 
   
The charge of the Tuchuk, in spite of its rapidity and

 
momentum, carried him no more than four paces beyond

 
me. It seemed scarcely had he passed than the kaiila had

 
wheeled and charged again, this time given free rein, that it

 
might tear at me with its fangs.

 
I thrust with the spear, trying to force back the snapping

 
jaws of the screaming animal. The kaiila struck, and then

 
withdrew, and then struck again. All the time the Tuchuk

 
thrust at me with his lance. Four times the point struck me