Nomads of Gor (60 page)

       
skeptically, reproachfully.

         
"What is the matter?" asked Harold.

         
"It is still hobbled," I said.

       
I bent to the tarn hobble and opened it. Immediately the

       
huge bird's wings began to beat and it sprang skyward.

       
"Aiii!" I heard Harold cry, and could well imagine what had

       
happened to his stomach.

       
As quickly as I could I then unhobbled the other bird and

       
climbed to the saddle, fastening the broad safety strap. Then

       
I hauled on the one-strap and seeing Harold's bird wheeling

       
about in circles against one of the Gorean moons sped to his

       
side.

       
"Release the straps!" I called to him. "The bird will follow

       
this one!"

         
"Very well," I heard him call, cheerily.

       
And in a moment we were speeding high over the city of

       
Turia. I took one long turn, seeing the torches and lights in

       
the House of Saphrar below, and then guided my bird out

       
over the prairie in the direction of the wagons of the

       
Tuchuks.

       
I was elated that we had managed to escape alive from the

       
House of Saphrar, but I knew that I must return to the city,

       
for I had not obtained the object for which I had come the

       
golden sphere which still resided in the merchant strong-

       
hold.

         
I must manage to seize it before the man with whom

       
Saphrar had had dealings the gray man with eyes like

      
glass could call for It and destroy it or carry it away.

    
As we sped high over the prairie I wondered at how it was

    
that Kamchak was withdrawing the wagons and bosk from

   
Turia that he would so soon abandon the siege.

   
Then, in the dawn, we saw the wagons below us, and the
  

   
bosk beyond them. Already fires had been lit and there was
  

   
much activity in the camp of the Tuchuks, the cooking, the
 

   
checking of wagons, the gathering and hitching up of the

   
wagon bosk. This, I knew, was the morning on which the
  

   
wagons moved away from Turia, toward distant Thassa, the

    
Sea. Risking arrows, I, followed by Harold, descended to
           

  
alight among the wagons.

         
I had now been in the city of Turia some four days, having

         
returned on foot in the guise of a peddler of small jewels. I

         
had left the tarn with the wagons. I had spent my last tarn

         
disk to buy a couple of handfuls of tiny stones, many of them

   
      
of little or no value; yet their weight in my pouch gave me

         
some pretext for being in the city.

         
I had found Kamchak, as I had been told I would, at the

         
wagon of Kutaituchik, which, drawn up on its hill near the

        
 
standard of the four bask horns, had been heaped with what

         
wood was at hand and filled with dry grass. The whole was

         
then drenched in fragrant oils, and that dawn of the retreat,

         
Kamchak, by his own hand, hurled the torch into the wagon.

         
Somewhere in the wagon, fixed in a sitting position, weapons

         
at hand, was Kutaituchik, who had been Kamchak's friend,

         
and who had been called Ubar of the Tuchuks. The smoke of

         
the wagon must easily have been seen from the distant walls

         
of Turia. ~

         
Kamchak had not spoken but sat on his kaiila, his face

         
dark with resolve. He was terrible to look upon and I, though

         
his friend, did not dare to speak to him. I had not returned

         
to the wagon I had shared with him, but had come immedi-

         
ately to the wagon of Kutaituchik, where I had been in-

         
formed he was to be found.

         
Clustered about the hill, in ranks, on their kaiila, black

         
lances in the stirrup, were several of the Tuchuk Hundreds.

         
Angrily they watched the wagon burn.

          
I wondered that such men as Kamchak and these others

          
would so willingly, abandon the siege of Turia.

 
At last when the wagon had burned and the wind moved

 
about the blackened beams and scattered ashes across the

 
green prairie, Kamchak raised his right hand. "Let the stan-

 
dard be moved," he cried.

 
I observed a special wagon, drawn by a dozen bask, being

 
pulled up the hill, into which the standard, when uprooted,

 
would be set. In a few minutes the great pole of the standard

 
had been mounted on the wagon and was descending the hill,

 
leaving on the summit the burned wood and the black ashes

 
that had been the wagon of Kutaituchik, surrendering them

 
now to the wind and the rain, to time and the snows to

 
come, and to the green grass of the prairie.

  
"Turn the wagons!" called Kamchak.

 
Slowly, wagon by wagon, the long columns of the Tuchuk

 
retreat were formed, each wagon in its column, each column

 
in its place, and, covering pasangs of prairie, the march front

 
Turia had begun.

 
Far beyond the wagons I could see the herds of bask, and

 
the dust from their hoofs stained the horizon.

 
Kamchak rose in his stirrups. "The Tuchuks ride from

 
Turial" he cried.

 
Rank by rank the warriors on the kaiila, dour, angry,

 
silent, turned their mounts away from the city and slowly

 
went to find their wagons, save for the Hundreds that would

 
flank the withdrawal and form its rear guard.

 
Kamchak rode his kaiila up the hill until he stood, that

 
cold dawn, at the edge of the burned wood and ashes of

 
Kutaituchik's wagon. He stayed there for some time, and

 
then turned his mount away, and came slowly down the hill.

 
Seeing me, he stopped. "I am pleased to see you live," he

 
said.

 
I dropped my head, acknowledging the bond he had ac-

 
knowledged. My heart felt grateful to the stern, fierce war-

 
rior, though he had been in the past days harsh and strange,

 
half drunk with hatred for Turia. I did not know if the

 
Kamchak I had known would ever live again. I feared that

 
part of him perhaps that part I had loved best had died

 
the night of the raid, when he had entered the wagon of

 
Kutaituchik. ~

 
Standing at his stirrup I looked up. "Will you leave like

 
this?" I asked. "Is it enough?"

 
He looked at me, but I could read no expression on his

 
face. "The Tuchuks ride from Turia," he said. He then rode

 
away, leaving me standing on the hill.

        
 
Somewhat to my surprise I had no difficulty the next

         
morning, after the withdrawal of the wagons, in entering the

         
city. Before leaving the wagons I had joined them briefly on

         
their march, long enough to purchase my peddler's disguise

         
and the pound or so of stones which was to complete it. I

         
purchased these things from the man from whom Kamchak

         
had, on a happier afternoon, obtained a new saddle and set

         
of quivas. I had seen many things in the man's wagon and I

         
had gathered, correctly it seems, that he was himself a

         
peddler of sorts. I then, on foot, following for a time the

         
tracks of the departing wagons, then departing from them,

         
returned to the vicinity of Turia. I spent the night on the

         
prairie and then, on what would have been the second day of

         
the retreat, entered the city at the eighth hour. My hair was

         
concealed in the hood of a thin, ankle-length rep-cloth gar-

         
ment, a dirty white through which ran flecks of golden

         
thread, a fit garment, in my opinion, for an insignificant

         
merchant. Beneath my garment, concealed, I carried sword

         
and quiva.

         
I was hardly questioned by guards at the gates of Turia,

         
for the city is a commercial oasis in the plains and during a

         
year hundreds of caravans, not to mention thousands of

         
small merchants, on foot or with a single tharlarion wagon,

         
enter her gates. To my great surprise the gates of Turia stood

         
open after the withdrawal of the wagons and the lifting of

         
the siege. Peasants streamed through them returning to their

         
fields and also hundreds of townsfolk for an outing, some of

         
them to walk even as far as the remains of the old Tuchuk

         
camp, hunting for souvenirs. As I entered I regarded the

         
lofty double gates, and wondered how long it would take to

         
close them.

         
As I hobbled through the city of Turia, one eye half shut,

         
staring at the street as though I hoped to find a lost copper

         
tarn disk among the stones, I made my way toward the

         
compound of Saphrar of Turia. I was jostled in the crowds,

         
and twice nearly knocked down in the guard of

         
Phanius Turmus, Ubar of Turia.

         
I was vaguely conscious, from time to time, that I might