Savages of Gor (41 page)

"The Fleer was impressed," said Grunt. "Did you see?

"Yes," I said.

"I am proud of all of them," said Grunt. "Did you see bow they responded to the touch of his lance?"

"Yes," I said.

"They are good stuff," said Grunt.

"I think so," I said.

"And I am grateful to you, for your help, in beating them, and helping to teach them their bondage," he said.

I shrugged. I had, it must be admitted, derived much pleasure from the coffle, picking out one or another of them, when the whim or urge might strike me, for my slave use. I regarded them. Their necks were lovely in their iron collars and chains. Last night I had had Priscilla, the English girl, weeping in my arms. Before that I had had Lois, the short, blond American girl. She looked particularly well in chains.

"Your tutelage of them in submission and servitude, the instructional abuse to which you have subjected them," said Grunt, "may prove to be instrumental in saving their lives."

"They are eager pupils," I said, "having now come to understand that they are truly slaves."

"Good," said Grunt.

I wondered why Grunt had administered so little, if any, of this form of instruction to his coffled properties. Surely he could see, as well as any other, their desirability and beauty.

"Up with your burdens, my pretty beasts!" called Grunt. "Do you think you are fed for nothing? Do you think we can dawdle here all day! No! We must march!"

"What do you think the Fleer was doing here?" I asked.

"He was probably left behind to kill survivors," said Grunt.

"We are, of course, in Fleer country," I said. "He was in the paint of war," said Grunt

"He did not show hostility towards us," I said.

"We were not involved in the action," said Grunt.

"The site of the action, I gather," I said, "is quite close."

"I fear so," said Grunt.

"Perhaps we should ride well ahead of the coffle," I said.

"I think that is probably true," said Grunt.

16
   
The Kur; I Meet Waniyanpi; I Hear of the Lady Mira

"It occurred here," said Grunt, "obviously."

We looked down from the rise, onto the valley below.

"I had thought it would be worse," I said. I remembered the grisly aftermath of the attack on the Hobarts' men.

Below us there lay little more, seemingly, than overturned and scattered wagons, some burned. Harness was cut. The carcass of a draft tharlarion, here and there, loomed in the grass. Most of the animals, however, had apparently been cut free and driven away.

"It could be worse than you think," said Grunt. "Much death might lie about in the grass."

"Perhaps," I said.

Yet there seem few scavengers," he said.

I looked behind us. The red-haired girl, first in the coffle, stood near us. The other girls, then, and the Hobarts, in their place, came up with her.

We had forgotten them, in coming over the rise, in seeing the wagons. Now there seemed little purpose in warning them back. Too, it did not seem as sickening as we had feared, what lay before us.

"The attack presumably did not take place at dawn," said Grunt, "and, presumably, it would not have occurred late in the day."

"Your surmise is based on the scattering of the wagons," I said, "that they are not defensively circled, but are aligned, as for the march."

"Yes," said Grunt.

"And the attack would not take place late in the day," I said, "because of the possibility of survivors escaping under the cover of darkness."

"That is it," said Grunt. "It is my speculation that the wagons were being opened and aligned for the march."

"If that is true," I said, "we should find the remains of evening fires, large cooking fires, with circled stones, near the wagons, not the absence of fires, nor the smaller remains of midday fires."

"Yes," said Grunt.

We then began to move our kaiila down the rise, toward the wagons. There were several of them. Some were turned awry; some were overturned, and some stood mute and stark in their tracks, unattended, as though waiting to be utilized, the grass about their axles, the heavy beams of their tongues sloping to the earth. Most of the wagons were charred to one extent or another. In none was the canvas covering intact. It had either been torn away or burned. The curved supports for the canvas, which were metal, in most cases remained. Against the sky they had a macabre, skeletal appearance, not unlike exposed ribs. The irregular line of the wagons extended for something like a pasang. As we came closer we could see, here and there, and sometimes within the wagons, discarded and shattered objects. Chests had been overturned and broken open. I saw a doll in the grass and a man's boot. Flour from rent sacks had been scattered on the grass.

"There are the remains here of evening fires," I said, moving the kaiila past some circles of stones.

"Yes," said Grunt. These fires presumably would have been within the wagon circle. The attack, then, it seemed clear, would have occurred in the morning, probably during, or shortly after, the hitching up of the draft tharlarion. The number of cut harnesses suggested the second alternative. Here and there I saw an arrow in the grass. The comparative fixity of these objects, almost upright, leaning, slim and firm, contrasted with the movement of the grass which, in the wind, bent and rustled about them.

The kaiila suddenly, with a snort, shifted to the right. I kept the saddle. I restrained the beast, forcibly. I jerked the reins to the left and kicked back, into the silken flanks of the animal.

"What is it?" asked Grunt.

I was looking down, into the grass.

"What is it that you see in the grass?" asked Grunt.

"Death," I said. "But no common death."

I threw the reins to Grunt, and dismounted. "Stay back," I warned the girls.

I examined what was left of the body.

"No Fleer or Yellow Knife did that," said Grunt.

"No," I said.

The head was lacerated, but the wounds were superficial. The throat, however, had been bitten through. The left leg was gone.

"It must have been a survivor," said Grunt "The body is clothed. He must have been returning to the wagons, perhaps to search for food."

"I think so," I said.

"Then a wild sleen must have caught him," said Grunt.

"The sleen is primarily nocturnal," I said. I had seen such things before. I did not think the body bore the marks of a sleen.

"So?" said Grunt.

"Look," I said. Between my thumb and forefinger there was a dark, viscous stain. I wiped my fingers on the grass.

"I see," said Grunt. "Too," said he, "note the torn earth. It is still black. Grass uprooted near the body, there, has not dried yet. It is still green."

"Put a quarrel in your guide," I advised him. It seemed reasonably clear this attack had occurred within the Ahn.

Grunt looped the reins of my kaiila over the pommel of his saddle.

I stood up, and looked about me.

I heard Grunt arm his bow, drawing back the stout cable, his foot in the bow stirrup, then slotting the quarrel into the guide.

I shuddered, and quickly mounted the kaiila, taking back the reins from Grunt. I was pleased to be again in the saddle. Mobility is important in the Barrens. Too, the height considerably increases one's scanning range.

"It is still here, somewhere," I said. I glanced to Grunt's bow. He would have, presumably, but one shot with it.

"What is it?" asked Grunt. "A beast, one of the sort which you seek?"

"I think so," I said. "Too, I think that it, like the other fellow, is a survivor. That it has lingered in the vicinity of the wagons suggests to me that it, too, was wounded."

"It will be, then, extremely dangerous," said Grunt.

"Yes," I said. Certainly pain, hunger and desperation would not render any such beast the less dangerous.

A few feet to the left of the kaiila there was a keg of sugar, which had been split open. A trail of sugar, some four inches wide, some three or four yards long, drained through the split lid, had been run out behind it. It had probably been carried under someone's arm. This trove was the object of the patient industry of ants, thousands of them, from perhaps a hundred hills about. It would be the prize, doubtless, in small and unrecorded wars.

Grunt and I moved our kaiila forward. Behind us I heard the red-haired girl vomit in the grass. She had passed too closely to the body.

"Look!" cried Grunt. "There, ahead!"

"I see it," I cried.

"Do they not care to defend themselves?" he inquired.

"Hurry." I said, urging the kaiila forward.

We raced ahead. We were some half pasang beyond the line of strewn, charred wagons behind us. We now approached other wagons, but scattered about. These were the wagons for which I had earlier sought in vain, the smaller, squarish wagons, which bad been with the mercenary column. They, too, seemed broken. Two were overturned. Some had been burned to the wagon bed, others missed a roof or a roof and wall. To none of them were harnessed tharlarion. Given their distance from the other wagons and their distribution in the grass I took it that they had broken their column and sped away, as best they might They had not had the time, or the presence of mind, perhaps, to form a defensive barrier.

Near some three of these wagons there was a small group of figures, perhaps some fifteen or twenty men. One stood out a bit from the others. It was he who was most obviously threatened by the brown, looming shape, which had apparently emerged from the grass near them. I did not know if they bad disturbed the beast, or if it lad been moving towards them, until then, at its choice, unseen. The man held a shovel, but he had not raised it to defend himself. His posture did not seem brave, but rather phlegmatic. Could it be he did not understand his danger?

"Hurry!" I cried to the kaiila.

The paws of Grunt's beast thundered beside my own. "He is insane!" cried Grunt.

The beast itself seemed puzzled, uncertain, regarding the man.

Never before, perhaps, had it found itself viewed with such incomprehension.

The men wore gray garments, open at the bottom, which fell between the knee and ankle.

The beast turned its head suddenly to face us. In less than a handful of Ehn I pulled up the kaiila, rearing and squealing, between the beast and the man.

The beast snarled and took a step backward. I saw that it was neither Kog nor Sardak.

"Get back!" I warned the men.

Obediently they all, including the fellow who had been most forward, drew back.

I did not take my eyes from the beast. It raised one darkly stained paw. The hair between the digits was matted and stuck together. I supposed this was from the kill a pasang or so back.

I backed the kaiila a step or two from the beast. "Back away," I told the men. They obeyed.

The fur of the beast was rent and thick, here and there, with clotted blood. I think, more than once, it might have been struck with lances. It had perhaps lost consciousness in the grass, from the loss of blood, and had been left for dead. It was not the sort of thing the red savages would mutilate. They were unfamiliar with it. They would presumably classify it with sleen or urts, not men.

The beast, snarling, took a step forward.

"It is going to attack," said Grunt. "I can kill it," he said. He raised the crossbow.

"Do not fire," I said.

Grunt did not discharge the weapon.

"Look at it," I said.

The beast regarded Grunt, and then myself. Its lips curled back over the double ring of white fangs.

"It is showing contempt for us," I said.

"Contempt?" said Grunt, puzzled.

"Yes," I said. "You see, he is not similarly armed."

"It is a beast," said Grunt. But he lowered the weapon.

"It is a Kur," I said.

The beast then backed away from us, snarling. After a few feet it turned and dropped to all fours, moving through the grass. It did not look back.

I moved the kaiila a few feet forward, to where it had originally stood in the grass. I wished to study the pattern of grasses there. Then I returned to where Grunt, and the others, were waiting.

"You should have let me kill it," said Grunt.

"Perhaps," I said.

"Why did you not have me fire?" asked Grunt.

"It has to do with codes," I said.

"Who are you, truly?" asked Grunt.

"One to whom codes were once familiar," I said, "one by whom they have never been completely forgotten."

I brought my kaiila about, and before the fellow who had been most obviously threatened by the beast.

"I feared there might be violence," he said.

"I have examined the grass, whence the beast arose," I said. "It had been approaching you, unseen. It was stalking you."