Nomads of Gor (89 page)

 
Kajir, but now uncollared, now free. Her fingertips were

 
before her mouth. She seemed numb. She shook her head.

 
I walked behind Kamchak, on his kaiila. Harold walked

 
beside me. Hereena and Elizabeth followed us, each, as was

 
proper, some two paces behind.

   
"Why is it," I asked Harold, "that he spared Turia?"

   
"His mother was Turian," said Harold.

   
I stopped.

   
"Did you not know?" asked Harold.

   
I shook my head. "No," I said. "I did not know."

 
"It was after her death," said Harold, "that Kutatuchik

 
first tasted the rolled strings of kanda."

   
"I did not know," I said.

   
Kamchak was now well in advance of us.

 
Harold looked at me. "Yes," he said, "she had been a

 
Turian girl taken as slave by Kutaituchik but he cared for

 
her and freed her. She remained with him in the wagons

 
until her death the Ubar of the Tuchuks."

 
Outside the main gate of the palace of Phanius Turmus,

 
Kamchak, on his kaiila, waited for us. Our beasts were teth-

 
ered there, and we mounted. Hereena and Elizabeth would

 
run at our stirrups.

  
We turned from the gate, to ride down the long avenue

  
leading toward the main gate of Turia.

   
Kamchak's face was inscrutable.

   
"Wait!" we heard.

  
We turned our mounts and saw Aphris of Turia, barefoot,

  
clad Kajir, running after us.

 
She stopped beside Kamchak's stirrup, standing there, her head down.

      
"What means this?" demanded Kamchak sternly.

      
The girl did not respond, nor did she raise her head.

      
Kamchak turned his kaiila and began to ride toward the

      
main gate, the rest of us following. Aphris, as Hereena and

      
Elizabeth, ran by the stirrup.

      
Kamchak reined in, and we all stopped. Aphris stood

      
there, her head down.

      
"You are free," said Kamchak.

      
Without raising her head, she shook it negatively. "No,"

      
she said, "I am Kamchak of the Tuchuks'."

      
She put her head timidly to Kamchak's fur boot in the

      
stirrup.

      
"I do not understand," said Kamchak.

      
She lifted her head and there were tears in her eyes.

      
"Please,"' she said, "Master."

      
"Why?" asked Kamchak.

      
She smiled. "I have grown fond of the smell of bosk," said

      
she.

      
Kamchak smiled. He held his hand to the girl. "Ride with

      
me, Aphris of Turia," said Kamchak of the Tuchuks.

      
She took his hand and he drew her to the saddle before

      
him, where she turned, sitting across the saddle, and placed

      
her head against his right shoulder, weeping.

      
"This woman," said Kamchak of the Tuchuks, brusquely,

      
his voice stern but almost breaking, "is called Aphris know

      
her she is Ubara of the Tuchuks, she is Ubara Sana, of my

      
heart Ubara Sana!"

      
We let Kamchak and Aphris ride ahead, and followed

      
them, by some hundred yards, toward the main gate of

      
Turia, now leaving the city, and its Home Stone and its

      
people, returning to the wagons and to the open, windswept

      
land beyond the high walls of the city, once-conquered,

      
nine-gated Turia of the southern plains of Gor.

 
 
Tuka, the slave girl, did not fare well at the hands of Elizabeth

 
Cardwell.

 
In the camp of the Tuchuks Elizabeth had begged that I

 
not free her for but another hour.

  
"Why?" I had asked.

 
"Because," she had said, "masters do not much care to

 
interfere in the squabbles of slaves."

 
I shrugged. It would be at least another hour before I was

 
ready to take wing for the Sardar, with the egg of Priest-

 
Kings safe in the saddle pack of my tarn.

 
There were several people gathered about, near the wagon

 
of Kamchak, among them Tuka's master, and the girl her-

 
self. I recalled how cruel she had been to Elizabeth in the

 
long months she had been with the Tuchuks, and how she

 
had tormented her even when she was helpless in the cage of

 
a sleen, mocking her and poking at her with the bask stick.

 
Perhaps Tuka gathered what might have been on Elizabeth's

 
mind, for no sooner had the American girl turned toward

 
her than she turned and fled from the wagon.

 
Within something like fifty yards we heard a frightened

 
squawk and saw Tulca thrown to the ground with a tackle

 
that might have done credit to a qualified professional player

 
of the American form of football. There shortly thereafter

 
followed a vigorous and dusty broil among the wagons,

 
involving much rolling about, biting, slapping, scratching and,

 
from time to time, the easily identified sound of a small fist,

apparently moving with considerable momentum, meeting

 
with venous partially resistant, protoplasmic curvatures.

        
There was only so much of this and we soon heard Tuka

        
shrieking for mercy. At that juncture, as I recall, Elizabeth

        
was kneeling on top of the Turian maiden with her hands in

        
her hair pounding her head up and down in the dirt. Eliza

        
beth's Tuchuk leather had been half torn from her but Tuka,

        
who had been clothed only Kajir, had fared not even this

        
well. Indeed, when Elizabeth finished, Tuka wore only the

        
Curia, the red band that ties back the hair, and this band

        
now knotted her wrists behind her back. Elizabeth then tied a

        
thong in Tulca's nose ring and dragged her to the creek,

        
where she might find a switch. When she found a suitable

        
implement, of proper length and flexibility, of appropriate

        
diameter and suppleness, she then secured Tuka by nose ring

        
and thong to the exposed root of a small but sturdy bush,

        
and thrashed her soundly. Following this, she untied the

        
thong from the root and permitted the girl, thong still

        
streaming from her nose ring, wrists still bound behind her,

        
to run for her master's wagon, but pursued her each foot of

        
the way like a hunting sleen, administering innumerable

        
stinging incitements to greater and ever greater speed.

        
At last, panting, bleeding here and there, discolored in

        
places, half-naked, triumphant, Elizabeth Cardwell returned

     
to my side, where she knelt as a humble, obedient slave girl.

         
When she had somewhat caught her breath I removed the

    
collar from her throat and freed her.

      
I set her on the saddle of the tarn, telling her to hold to

      
the pommel of the saddle. When I myself mounted I would

        
tie her to the pommel with binding fiber. I would fasten

      
about myself the broad safety strap, usually purple, which is

        
an invariable portion of the tarn saddle.

      
Elizabeth did not seem affrighted to be astride the tarn. I

       
was pleased that there were some changes of clothing for her

      
in the pack. I observed that she needed them, or at least one

        
of them.

        
Kamchak was there, and his Aphris, and Harold and his

        
Hereena, still his slave. She knelt beside him, and once when

        
she dared to touch her cheek to his right thigh he good-

        
naturedly cuffed the slave girl away.

         
"How are the bosk doing?" I asked Kamchak.

         
"As well as might be expected," he responded.

         
I turned to Harold. "Are the quivas sharp?" I inquired.

         
"One tries to keep them that way," said Harold.

 
I turned back to Kamchak. "It is important," I reminded

 
him, "to keep the axles of the wagons greased."

  
"Yes," he said, "I think that is true."

  
I clasped the hands of the two men.

  
"I wish you well, Tarl Cabot," said Kamchak.

  
"I wish you well, Kamchak of the Tuchuks," I said

 
"You are not really a bad fellow," said Harold, "for a

 
Koroban."

  
"You are not bad yourself," I granted, "for a Tuchuk."

  
"I wish you well," said Harold.

  
"I wish you well," I said.

 
Swiftly I climbed the short ladder to the tarn saddle, and

 
tied it against the saddle. I then took binding fiber and looped

 
it several times about Miss Cardwell's waist and then several

 
times about the pommel of the saddle, then tying it.

 
Harold and Kamchak looked up at me. There were tears

 
in the eyes of both men. Now, diagonally, like a scarlet

 
chevron coursing the flight of the cheek bones, there blazed

 
on the face of Harold the Tuchuk the Courage Scar.

 
"Never forget," said Kamchak, "that you and I have

 
together held grass and earth."

  
"I will never forget," I said.

 
"And while you are remembering things," remarked

 
Harold, 'you might recollect that we two together won the

 
Courage Scar in Turia."

  
"No," I said, "I will not forget that either."