Swordsmen of Gor (16 page)

Pertinax would have fled such fellows, I suppose, but I was curious as to their origin, and their business here, in this remote area.

Too, I was armed.

So I approached them, as though I might have been waiting for them.

Doubtless they were to be met, in one way or another, either at the beach, or later, in the forest.

I lifted my hand. “Tal,” I said.

“Tal,” said a fellow, and then one or two or more.

“You are late,” I said.

I had no idea if this were true or not, but the round ship which had recently departed, I was reasonably sure, had been late. Should it not have arrived yesterday, when I had been disembarked from the ship of Peisistratus?

“Adverse winds,” said a fellow. “We were much under oars. The sea was high.”

That accent, I conjectured, was Tyrian, or Cosian. They are muchly similar.

“How are things in Kasra?” I inquired. “In Jad?” These were, respectively, ports in Tyros and Cos.

One of the fellows looked at me, strangely.

“It is years since I saw Kasra,” said a man.

“I have not seen the terraces of Cos since the fall of Ar,” said another.

“They are mariners,” said the fellow who had first returned my greeting. “Most here are fee fighters, mercenaries.”

“You do not appear regulars,” I granted him.

I watched the small ship dip her oars and begin to move south. After a time, a hundred yards or so from shore, she dropped her sail.

“There was another ship here,” said a man. “We heard the lookout cry her position.”

“A round ship,” I said. “I could not persuade her to dally.”

Several of the men laughed. It was a laugh which would not have reassured Pertinax.

“How are things in Ar?” I inquired.

“Have you not heard?” said a fellow, incredulously.

“No,” I said.

“Ar has risen,” said another. “Only by forced marches, on which many perished, were we able to elude vengeful citizens.”

“Hundreds were captured, tortured, and impaled,” said another.

“We, and some hundreds, fought to open the streets which had been barricaded against us, to prevent our egress, to pen us helplessly within that sea of fire and blood,” said another, shuddering.

“Some of us,” said a man, “apprised of the danger, wary to rumors, took what loot we could, what we had acquired in the occupation, and more, and slipped away, into the night, before the great bars rang the rebellion.”

“Those were the fortunate ones,” said a fellow, grimly.

“I do not understand,” I said.

“You have heard of Marlenus,” said a man, “surely?”

“Of course,” said I, “Marlenus of Ar, of Glorious Ar, Ubar of Ubars.”

“Long was he gone from Ar,” said a fellow. “He disappeared, on a hunting trip, in the Voltai.”

“As time went on, he was supposed dead,” said a man. “Surely you know of the war betwixt Ar, and Tyros and Cos, and other polities?”

“Yes,” I said.

A hundred war banners, I feared, had been unfurled.

“Fortunate it was for Tyros, Cos, and their allies,” said a fellow, shuddering, “that Marlenus was absent from the city.”

I supposed that so.

“Mercenaries, and mercenary bands, were recruited from dozens of states, even from brigand bands, from outlaw leagues, eager for loot.”

There was some rueful laughter from several of the fellows about.

“These swelled the ranks of the spears of the island ubarates,” said a fellow.

The strength of the maritime ubarates was surely in their fleets, not in their ground forces.

“Ar neglected precautions,” said a man, incredulously. I wondered if he might not have been a banished warrior, from some city. I thought the scarlet would not have ill become him. “She failed to arm and deploy her formidable infantries.”

“I see,” I said.

These things I muchly knew.

I recalled that Dietrich of Tarnburg had fought a tenacious holding action at Torcodino, to delay the advance on Ar, to give her time to meet the avalanche, the swift confluences, of armed men who would descend upon her. But his action had been unavailing, and Ar had remained quiescent, even inert, though surely the screams of the tarns of war must have somehow reached her walls. Could they not heed the plaints of refugees, hear the drums of spearmen, sense the ponderous tread of war tharlarion? It soon became clear to many that conspiracy and treachery reigned within the Central Cylinder, and that the throne itself might now be festooned with the promises and wealth of the island ubarates. Ar, pathetic, confused, disorganized, and distraught, was unable to muster more than the feeblest of resistances, and these were muchly betrayed by commands from the Central Cylinder. Many of the best forces of Ar, her finest troops, her best officers, by intent, to divert them from the defense of the city, had been earlier ordered to the vast delta of the Vosk, to engage there in an alleged punitive expedition against supposed incursions from Cos and Tyros. These troops were deliberately undersupplied and misled. They were deliberately subjected to orders which were obscure or confused, even contradictory, orders the compliance with which would be almost suicidal in the terrain. These troops, as planned, had been decimated in the delta of the Vosk, and largely lost, the prey of heat and insects, of salt water and quicksand, of armed rencers, of serpents and tharlarion. Few, proportionately, had returned home. Some, dazed and starving, half mad, had reached the southern dikes of Port Kar, separating her from the delta. And when some managed to reach Ar, they found her surrendered to the enemy, garrisoned by the foe. Myron,
polemarkos
of the continental forces of Cos, he of Temos, cousin to Lurius of Jad, of Cos, was in command of the city, though he maintained a headquarters outside her
pomerium
. In this fashion it was proclaimed that Ar had been liberated and a new day had come about, one of harmony, peace, and amicability. Meanwhile the citizens of Ar were to believe their loss was a gain, their defeat a victory. They must atone now for the erstwhile glory of Ar, regret her former might, influence, and power. Now they must acknowledge her misdeeds, and celebrate her redemption by her friends and allies, the benign forces of Cos, Tyros, and their allies. And many sang, and congratulated themselves on their newly found virtue, while dismantling their walls to the scornful music of flute girls. Meanwhile, of course, the invaders tightened their controls and, for months, either randomly, as it pleased them, or systematically, in accord with the directives of the
polemarkos
, began to loot Ar of its wealth, its silver and gold, its jewelries and gems, its medical elixirs, its ointments and scents, its pagas and wines, its manufactures, its beasts, its slaves, and, in many cases, its free women, some put in paga taverns and brothels, others stripped and coffled, to be led to foreign markets, and some even, after transport from Brundisium, to Cos and Tyros themselves.

To be sure, all had not gone as smoothly as it might have for the invaders because, eventually, sporadic acts of resistance occurred. These were generally attributed to the work of a small group of resistance fighters, which became known as the Delta Brigade. Because of the vast, triangular spreading of the Vosk river, into dozens of smaller rivers, often mutually interfluent, flowing into the Tamber Gulf, which leads to Thassa herself, the sea, that area is known in Gorean as the Delka, or, better, the Delka of the Vosk. “Delka” is a triangular letter in Gorean, the fourth letter in her alphabet, derived, it seems, from the Greek letter “Delta.” The core of the Delta Brigade was surmised to be composed of veterans returned from the misdirected and ill-fated campaign in the Vosk’s delta, and thus the term “Delta Brigade.”

“Tell me of the rising, the rebellion,” I said.

“Woe to Cos and Tyros,” said a fellow. “Marlenus returned.”

“Where had he been, what had been his fate?” I asked.

“Much is unclear,” said one of the fellows. “It seems he was injured in a fall, whilst hunting, lost his sense of self, wandered perhaps, no longer knew himself.”

“Some think he might have been captured, and imprisoned in Treve,” said a fellow.

“Impossible,” said another.

“In any event,” said a bearded fellow, “it seems he emerged from the Voltai, thought himself somehow of the Peasants, and labored with them.”

“He was eventually recognized, in Ar,” said another.

“It was said by a mere slave,” said another.

“Interesting,” I said.

“A female,” said another.

“Was she then freed?” I asked.

Several of the men laughed.

“Forgive me,” I said. “I spoke foolishly.”

Gorean slaves were seldom freed. Indeed, there is a saying that only a fool frees a slave girl.

“Soon others recognized him, as well,” said another.

“Then he was concealed by partisans,” said another.

“He recovered his memory,” I said.

“It was strange,” said another.

“We know only the stories,” said another.

“He was like a child, it seems,” said another, “a powerful, dangerous child. He listened to what he was told. He learned what had occurred in the city, as it was patiently explained to him. He grew sorrowful, and then, slowly, angry. Then he said, ‘But where is Marlenus?’”

“This elated his sheltering partisans,” said another, “that he could recall that name. ‘Where is Marlenus?’ he asked, again, and again. ‘He must return,’ he was told. ‘Where is he?’ he asked. ‘In the city, it is thought,’ he was told.”

“He did not know himself Marlenus?” I said.

“No,” said one of the men.

“Continue,” I said.

“‘Who rules in Ar?’ he asked,” said the bearded fellow.

“‘Truly, or in name?’ inquired his interlocutor,” said another. “And he wished to know in truth who ruled, and he was told Lurius of Jad, in far Cos, but through Myron, the
polemarkos
, with the collusion of Seremides, master of the Taurentians, the palace guard. And then he asked who then ruled in name, and men feared to tell him, that it was she who had once been his daughter, before her dishonoring, and disownment, for the slur she had once cast on his honor.”

I knew something of this.

She had once been captured and enslaved by the tarnsman, Rask, of Treve, but he, having become, however unaccountably, enamored of a blond barbarian slave named El-in-or, gave her to Verna, a leader of Panther Girls, who took her to the northern forests. Later, on the northern coast, she was exposed for sale. There she had come within the cognizance of a slaver, Samos, first Captain in the Council of Captains of Port Kar. Eager to escape the toils of her cruel mistresses, and hoping that she might be returned to civilization, and even freed, she had begged him to buy her. And thusly had she performed a slave’s act, begging to be purchased, for in this act one acknowledges oneself purchasable, and thus a slave. I, later, at the time unable to walk, and muchly paralyzed by the poison of Sullius Maximus, encountered her in the house of Samos. I had had her freed and returned to Ar. It was by then common knowledge how she had been slave, and in what fashion she had come into the keeping of Samos. The honor and pride of a man such as Marlenus of Ar, Ubar of Ar, Ubar of Ubars, refused to sustain indignities of this enormity. Such affronts could not be brooked by an honor such as his. What an insult, profound and grievous, was this to his blood, and to the throne of Ar! He thus disowned her as his daughter, and had had her sequestered in the Central Cylinder, that her shame might be concealed from the city and the world.

Had she not been free when she was delivered to Ar it is quite probable she would have been whipped and sold out of the city.

Had she, when free, and not slave, been guilty of a stain on the honor of Ar she might well have been publicly impaled.

“But he asked, again, and again, in his slow, childlike way, who now, be it only in name, ruled in Ar,” said one of the men on the beach, “and the partisans took council, and decided to risk the disclosure, though they knew not what effect it might have.”

“‘Talena,’ he was told,” said another, “’daughter of Marlenus of Ar.’”

“Then,” said another, “as the story has it, he lifted his head, and his whole mien changed, and his body seemed to become larger and filled with power, and his eyes took on a strange, fierce, wicked gleam, and he said, quietly, and not in his slow, innocent, puzzled, childlike voice, but in another voice, a voice like iron and ice, ‘Marlenus of Ar has no daughter.’”

“The partisans looked to one another, their eyes alight,” said a man.

“It is then,” said another, “as the story goes, that he stood upright amongst the partisans, like a larl amongst panthers, and said, ‘Bring me a banner of Ar.’”

“‘Who are you?’ he was asked, ‘that you dare ask for a banner of Ar?’” said another. “’They have been forbidden,’ said a partisan. ‘They are concealed.’”

“‘Bring me a banner,’ he said, ‘one large, and broad.’ ‘Furled or unfurled?’ he was asked. ‘Furled,’ he said, ‘that it may then be unfurled.’”

“The partisans then gasped, realizing who it was who then stood amongst them.”

“‘Who would dare unfurl the banner of Ar?’ he was asked.”

“‘I,’ he said, ‘Marlenus, Ubar of Ar.’”

The unfurling of a furled banner, in given circumstances, when this is accomplished deliberately, slowly, and ritualistically, is far more than a sign of war; it is a sign of unappeasable purpose, of unmitigated intent, of implacable resolution. More than once the surrender of cities has not been accepted, but they have been leveled and burned, simply because a banner had been unfurled.

“‘How many swords have we?’ he is said to have asked, and then demanded maps of the city, that he might be shown the locations of intrusive garrisons. The men about him he appointed high officers, by his word alone.”

This was possible, as the word of the Ubar takes precedence over councils.

“Had we known Marlenus was in the city,” said a man, “we should have withdrawn.”

“Word,” said another, “was soon in the streets, and it swept from
insula
to
insula
, and to the lesser cylinders.”

“But we were not immediately aware of this,” said a man. “Surely the great bar had not yet rung, signaling the rising.”