Rebels of Gor (2 page)

“They will be used sparingly, at least at first,” said Lord Okimoto. “One wishes them to remain, for a time, mysterious, uncanny, and frightening.”

“One cannot well keep them here, in the holding, in any event,” said Lord Nishida. “There is not enough food here to sustain such creatures.”

“You wish me to relocate the cavalry here?” I had said, indicating the place on the map called to my attention by Lord Temmu.

“Yes,” he said.

It was a convergence of two streams. One need only follow one or the other stream.

“We have lost much,” I said. “We have little more than was brought from the camp, most on the readied tarns. We will need tents, supplies.”

“Of course,” said Lord Temmu. “Such things may be carried overland.”

“What we need will be carried on tarnback, or in improvised tarn baskets,” I said.

“Excellent,” said Lord Temmu. “Then porters will not be aware of the camp’s location.”

“Or others,” said Lord Okimoto, “who might follow the porters.”

“When can you leave?” asked Lord Temmu.

“Tonight,” I said, “under the cover of darkness.”

“As the holding is invested, and it seems hazardous to risk more troops below,” said Lord Nishida, “it is anticipated that food will grow short.”

“We shall supply the holding, as we can,” I said, “by air.”

“Ichiro, your bannerman,” said Lord Temmu, “is familiar with my fields. Confiscate rice, and slay any who might resist, or be unwilling.”

“It is for the shogun, Lord Temmu,” said Lord Okimoto.

“I fear,” said Lord Nishida, “many of our fields have fallen into the hands of the forces of Lord Yamada.”

“He who controls the fields, the rice, controls the islands,” said Lord Okimoto.

“Here?” I said, placing my finger on the map, where the two streams converged.

“Yes,” said Lord Temmu.

“We will depart at the Twentieth Ahn,” I said.

“Excellent,” he had said.

I would, of course, not place the camp at the position indicated. Several had been present, other than myself, and Lords Temmu, Nishida, and Okimoto, officers, high warriors, and scribes, even a reader of bones and shells. “Where all are to be trusted,” had said Nodachi, the swordsman, “trust none.”

Only myself, and those of the tarn command, insofar as it could be managed, would know the place of the camp, which I must soon determine. Moreover, the watches would now be kept only by members of the tarn command. I had eventually located a sheltered valley between cliffs, a place difficult to approach save by air, some one hundred and twenty pasangs north from the holding of Lord Temmu. Communication between the camp and the holding would be by tarnsmen, two or more tarns to be housed in the castle area. Those in the castle area, of those supposedly informed, would assume the camp was at the convergence of the two designated streams, at least until there was a reason to believe otherwise, perhaps in virtue of a fruitless raid, loosed upon unoccupied tents, pitched on an empty field. As one cannot trust spies, perhaps it might behoove spies not to trust others, as well.

“It is quiet,” said Lord Nishida, peering over the parapet.

“We can see little,” said Lord Okimoto.

Surely there had been no signal arrows from the lower posts, no torches, no cries of warning.

“The fog will soon lift,” said Lord Nishida.

Several times, at night, enemies from below, dark-clad, agile night fighters, had forced pitons into the cliff, but these had been broken free during the day, by Ashigaru, lowered from the walls above. The situation of the holding of Lord Temmu, surmounting cliffs landward, almost in the clouds as seen from below, rendered siege towers impractical. Trails leading to the valley below were narrow and easily defended. On the seaward side, a single, narrow, walled trail ascended tortuously from the wharves below to the courtyard of the holding. This trail, too, now barricaded, would be easily defended. The site of the holding, atop the cliffs, over the centuries, had apparently been variously fortified and commanded. Doubtless its lines, appointments, battlements, keeps, and structures, in number and nature, over the years, had changed, had come and gone, but the mountain, with its proud, summoning escarpment, had endured. As the remote, precipitous, unapproachable crag might commend itself to the wild tarn so too would this place commend itself to tarns amongst men. Was this not a possible place of wealth, and power? From such a place might not one command, govern, and rule? Might one not find here a suitable aerie for tyranny? From such an ensconcement might one not descend with fire and sword, and to such a place might one not withdraw, with immunity, laden with treasure? In the quiet, on the parapet, in the damp, chill air, standing there in the fog, I wondered on myself. Who knows oneself? Is one not always a stranger to oneself?

“The men are hungry,” said Lord Okimoto.

“The edge of hunger can be keener than the blade of a sword,” said Lord Nishida.

“It is then a matter of time,” said Lord Okimoto.

“Possibly,” said Lord Nishida.

I looked down.

The fog was now torn into patches and, below, I could see the ditches, the breastworks, the hurdles, the stakes, and, a half pasang behind, the tents, many tents, near the ashes of what had been one of the environing villages.

It would be difficult for a sortie to reach those tents before alarms could be sounded and resistance mustered. And the distance, too, would serve well to separate the personnel of such an excursion from the shelter of their own walls, enabling their pursuit, interception, or encirclement. The bolt of lightning strikes and vanishes. It is skilled in the lore of the raid. Penned verr may be slaughtered at the discretion of the butcher. They are less skilled.

Men see land differently, the merchant in terms of profitability, the sage in terms of quietude, the poet in terms of mood, the painter in terms of beauty, the peasant in terms of home, in terms of soil, fertility, tillability, and yield. But I feared I saw it differently. I was of the scarlet caste. The military eye does not see land as others see it. It sees it in terms of what might be done, and not done, and how easily, sees it in terms of movement, columns, the marshaling of men, the arrangement of troops, the order of battle, in terms of passage, heights, time, concealment, attack, marches, and tactics. High grass, a wood, may conceal foes. If there is a marsh to the right, would the attack not be likely from the left? Has a frightened animal darted past? What has frightened it? Keep high ground on the shield side.

I looked about myself.

As song to the poet and gold to the merchant would not this place, so lofty and beautiful, with its aspects and promises, call to the ruler, the leader, the soldier, the robber, the brigand, the warrior, the slayer, the commander, the Ubar?

I thought so.

Was this not ground from which to rule?

What do men seek?

Many traps are baited with silver.

Many seek a cell, if only its bars be of gold?

The wine of riches is a heady wine.

But one knows a stronger wine, one for which many are willing to stake life itself.

What delirium of
kanda
, I wondered, can compare with the rapture of that greater drug? But who, who listens carefully, can fail to hear the dark notes of terror in its bright song, to which the unwary hasten to succumb.

Its wine is the headiest.

I heard guardsmen call the watch, that all was well.

Is the throne not, I wondered, its own prison.

Is it worth the expenditure of blood and gold?

Surely many believe so, certainly if others may be brought to pay the price.

The wine of power is a heady wine.

Men will die to clutch at a scepter.

They will pay anything to rule forever, for a moment.

The cry of the guardsman was echoed, from post to post. So all was well.

But I, I knew, though of the scarlet caste, preferred the sky, the terrain below, mountains, the wind, the surging flight of the tarn, the exhilarating rush of air tearing at the jacket, and, of course, the recreation of the tarnsman, the loot one gathers, so pleasant, the collared, chained slave, at my feet, ready, soft, whimpering, hoping to be touched.

So all was well.

Yet this place could be taken, I knew. Numbers could be overwhelming, pressing incessantly at the trails. To some commanders blood is cheap when there is much of it to be expended. Within the holding itself, mutiny or revolution might occur. Gold might buy an opened gate. Reservoirs can go dry. Larders may be exhausted. Who knows in what corridors may be heard the songs of power?

Drums do not herald the approach of treachery.

It walks on light, soft feet.

I turned away from the parapet.

“Tarl Cabot, tarnsman,” said Lord Okimoto, “seems eager to return to his camp.”

“I should be with my command,” I said.

“You were not when the camp was struck,” said Lord Okimoto.

“No,” I said.

“Tarl Cabot, tarnsman, was fortunate in that respect,” said Lord Nishida.

“It is so,” said Lord Okimoto.

“He was summoned to the keep, by command of Lord Temmu,” said Lord Nishida.

“Most fortunate,” said Lord Okimoto.

“We shall supply, by tarn, what supplies we may secure,” I said. “The sky is open.”

“It seems,” said Lord Okimoto, “that supplies are scarce, and deliveries infrequent.”

“The commander,” said Lord Nishida, “will do what is possible. We may expect no more.”

“Of course,” said Lord Okimoto.

“Fields have been lost, burned, acquired by the enemy,” said Lord Nishida. “Lines are attenuated. There is occasionally the danger of arrow fire. And there are well over three thousand men in the holding.”

“We will do what we can,” I said.

“Our people,” said Lord Okimoto, “may unsheathe ritual blades.”

“Our mercenaries,” said Lord Nishida, “do not know our ways nor share them.”

“They may be gathered together with some pretext and fallen upon, and the matter is done within Ehn.”

“All is not lost,” I said.

“I fear,” said Lord Nishida, “we lie within the shadow of the iron dragon.”

“Let us trust not,” said Lord Okimoto.

“While strength remains,” I said, “we might rush forth, if only to fall beneath the blades of greater numbers.”

“That would be honorable,” said Lord Nishida.

“Might it not be a grander gesture to unsheathe the ritual knives, in their thousands?” asked Lord Okimoto. “That is a death for heroes, a noble death, scorning life, preferring honor. Would not rushing about, when all is hopeless, and known to be such, be undignified, even shameful, an act of desperation, contemptible, base, and disgraceful, like the bound tarsk squirming and squealing on the sacrificial altar? If our foes break into the holding and discover, to their dismay, only death and honor, we have cheated them of their victory; they will be awed and the victory will be ours. That would be a grand gesture, an act that would be retold about the fires for a thousand years.”

“I trust you will be the first to use the knife,” said Lord Nishida.

“Of course,” said Lord Okimoto.

“I do not think all men are heroes,” I said.

“Some are not,” said Lord Okimoto. “They may be attended to.”

“Not all agree on what is heroic,” I said.

“Those who do not may be attended to,” said Lord Okimoto.

“I fear our noble friend, Lord Okimoto,” said Lord Nishida, “is unduly pessimistic. Perhaps he has drafted a poem or painted a screen to that effect.”

“One takes comfort as one can,” said Lord Okimoto.

“All may not be lost,” said Lord Nishida. “I do not think the iron dragon has yet spread its wings.”

“The enemy is many, and, comparatively, we are few,” said Lord Okimoto. “We have lost in the field. The tarn cavalry, on which we were to rely for victory, has been discovered, surprised, and put to rout. It is little more than a third of its original strength, little more than a third of even what survived the voyage onto the homeland.”

“And even more would have been lost,” said Lord Nishida, “were it not for the precautions of our fellow, Tarl Cabot, tarnsman, who maintained a complement in constant readiness.”

“So some might escape,” said Lord Okimoto.

“And would there had been more,” said Lord Nishida.

“It seems” I said, “the location of the camp was known, and we failed to detect the approach of the enemy.”

“I wonder how that could be,” said Lord Okimoto.

“Would you care to speak more clearly, noble lord,” I said.

“Nothing speaks more clearly than steel,” said Lord Okimoto.

“If you wish,” I said, “we may continue this conversation so.”

“It is often wise, noble friends,” said Lord Nishida, “to think carefully before one speaks, particularly if one would speak with steel.”

“It is so, of course,” said Lord Okimoto.