Nomads of Gor (70 page)

 
raiders. I wondered on the fate of Aphris of Turia.
  

 
Kamchak, I knew, however, cared little for the slave, and

                     
would not be much concerned; yet her fate concerned me,

                     
and ~ hoped that she might live, that her beauty if not

           
       
compassion or justice might have won her life for her, be it

                    
only as a Paravaci wagon slave; and then, too, I wondered

                    
again on the fate of Miss Elizabeth Cardwell, the lovely

                     
young New York secretary, so cruelly and so far removed

                   
from her own world; and then, exhausted, I lay down on the
  

 
boards of Kamchak's looted wagon and fell asleep.

       
Turia was now largely under the control of Tuchuks. For

       
days it had been burning.

       
The morning after the Battle at the Wagons I had

       
mounted a rested kaiila and set forth for Turia. Some Ahn

       
after departing from the Tuchuk camp I encountered the

       
wagon that carried my tarn, and its guard, still advancing

       
toward the camp. The wagon carrying Harold's tarn and its

       
guard accompanied it. I- left the kaiila with the Tuchuks and

       
mounted my tarn, and in less than an Ahn, saw the shimmer-

       
ing walls of Turia in the distance, and the veils of smoke

       
rising over the city.

       
The House of Saphrar still stood, and the tower that had

       
been fortified by Ha-Keel's tarnsmen. Aside from these there

       
remained few pockets of organized - resistance in the city,

       
though here and there, in alleys and on roof tops, small

       
groups of Turians furtively and sporadically attempted to

       
carry the war to the invaders. I and Kamchak expected

       
Saphrar to flee by tarn at any moment, for it must now be

       
clear to him that the strike of the Paravaci against the

       
Tuchuk wagons and herds had not forced Kamchak to with-

       
draw; indeed, his forces were now supplemented by Kataii

       
and Kassars, a development which must have horrified him.

       
The only reason that occurred to me why Saphrar had not

       
yet fled was that he was waiting in Turia for an excellent

       
reason possibly the arrival on tarnback of the gray

       
man with whom he had negotiated apparently to secure the

       
golden sphere. I reminded myself, beyond this, that if his

 
house should actually be forced, and himself threatened, he

 
could always flee, with relative safety, at the last moment,
  
At

 
abandoning his men, his servants and slaves to the mercies of
 

 
ravaging Tuchuks.

 
I knew that Kamchak was in constant touch, by means of
        

 
riders, with the wagons of the Tuchuks, and so I did not
 

 
speak with him of the looting of his wagon, nor of the fate of

 
Aphris of Turia, nor did I deem it well to speak to him of

 
Elizabeth Cardwell, for it seemed evident that he had sold
    

 
her, and that my inquiry, to a Tuchuk mind, might thus

 
appear prying or impertinent; I would discover, if possible,

 
her master and his whereabouts independently; indeed, for all

 
I knew, perhaps she had been abducted by raiding Paravaci,

and none among the Tuchuks would even know.

I did ask Kamchak why, considering the probabilities that If'

the Kataii and the Kassars would not have come to the aid

of the Tuchuks, he had not abandoned Turia and returned

with his main forces to the wagons. "It was a wager," said

he, "which I had made with myself."

"A dangerous wager," I had remarked.

"Perhaps," he said, "but I think I know the Kataii and the Kassars."

"The stakes were high," I said.

"They are higher than you know," he said.

"I do not understand," I said.

"The wager is not yet done," he said, but would speak no dusk more.

On the day following my arrival in Turia, Harold, on

tarnback, relieved at his request of the command of the

wagons and herds joined me in the palace of Phanius Turmus must.

During the day and night, taking hours of sleep where we

could, sometimes on the rugs of the palace of Phanius Tur-

mus, sometimes on the stones of the streets by watch fires,

Harold and I, at Kamchak's orders, performed a variety of

tasks, sometimes joining in the fighting, sometimes acting as

liaison between him nod other commanders, sometimes merely

 
positioning men, checking outposts and reconnoitering.

Kamchak's forces, on the whole, were so disposed as to push

the Turians toward two gates which he had left open and

undefended, thus providing a route of escape for civilians

and soldiers who would make use of it. From certain post-

lions on the walls we could see the stream of refugees fleeing

the burning city. They carried food and what possessions they

        
could. The time of the year was the late spring and the

        
prairie's climate was not unkind, though occasionally long l

        
rains must have made the lot of the refugees fleeing toward .

        
other cities miserable. There were occasional small creek,

        
across the paths of the refugees and water was available.

        
Also, Kamchak, to my pleasure but surprise, had had his men

        
drive verr flocks and some Turian bask after the refugees

        
I asked him about this, for Tuchuk warfare, as I under-

        
stood it, was complete, leaving no living thing in its wake,

        
killing even domestic animals and poisoning wells. Certain

        
cities, burned by the Wagon Peoples more than a hundred

        
years ago, were still said to be desolate ruins between their

        
broken walls, silent save for the wind and the occasional foot-

        
fall of a prowling sleen hunting for urts.

          
"The Wagon Peoples need Turia," said Kamchak, simply.

        
I was thunderstruck. Yet it seemed to me true, for Turia

        
was the main avenue of contact between the Wagon Peoples

        
and the other cities of Gor, the gate through which trade-

        
goods flowed to the wilderness of grasses that was the land of

        
the riders of the kaiila and the herders of bask. Without

        
Turia, to be sure, the Wagon Peoples would undoubtedly be

        
the poorer.

        
"And," said Kamchak, "the Wagon Peoples need an enemy."

          
"I do not understand," I said.

        
"Without an enemy," said Kamchak, "they will never stand

        
together and if they fail to stand together, someday they

        
will fall."

        
"Has this something to do with the 'wager' you spoke of?"

        
I asked.

          
"Perhaps," said Kamchak.

        
- Still I was not altogether satisfied, for, on the whole, it

        
seemed to me that Turia might yet have survived even had

        
Kamchak's forces wrought much greater destruction than

        
they had for example, opening but a single gate and permit-

        
ting only a few hundred, rather than thousands to escape the

        
city. "is that all?" I asked. "Is that the only reason that Be

        
many of Turia yet live beyond the city?"

         
He looked at me, without expression. "Surely, Command"

         
or," he said, "you have duties elsewhere."

         
I nodded curtly and turned and left the room, dismissed.

         
Long ago I had learned not to press the Tuchuk when he did

         
not wish to speak. But as I left I wondered at his compare

         
five lenience. He professed a cruel hatred of Turia and

 
Turians, and yet he had, considering the normal practices of

 
the Wagon Peoples, not noted for their mercy to helpless

 
foes, treated the unarmed citizens of the city with unique

 
indulgence, permitting them, on the whole, to keep their lives

 
and freedom, though only as refugees beyond the walls. The

 
clearest exception to this, of course, lay in the case of the

 
more beautiful of the city's women, who were treated by

 
Gorean custom, as portions of the booty.

 
I spent what free time I could in the vicinity of Saphrar's

 
compound. The structures about the compound had been

 
fortified by Tuchuks, and walls of stone and wood had been

 
thrown into the streets and openings between the buildings,

 
thus enclosing the compound. 1 had been training some

 
hundred Tuchuks in the use of the crossbow, dozens of which

 
had now fallen into our hands. Each warrior had at his

 
disposal five crossbows and four Turian slaves, for winding

 
and loading the bows. These warriors I stationed on roofs of

 
buildings encircling the compound, as close to the walls as

 
possible. The crossbow, though its rate of fire is much slower

 
than the Tuchuk bow, has a much greater range. With the

 
crossbow in our hands, the business of bringing tarns in and

 
out of the compound became proportionately more haz-

 
ardous, which, of course, was what I intended. In fact, to my

 
elation, some of my fledgling crossbowmen, on the first day,

 
brought down four tarns attempting to enter the compound,

 
though, to be sure, several escaped them. If we could get the

 
crossbows into the compound itself, perhaps even to the

 
outside walls, we could for most practical purposes close the

 
compound to entrance and escape by air. I feared, of course,

 
that this addition to our armament might hasten Saphrar's