John Norman - Nomads of Gor

There was no problem of water in the city, incidentally, for Turia’s waters are supplied by deep, tile-lined wells, some of them hundreds of feet deep; there are also siege reservoirs, Bled with the melted snows of the winter, the rains of the spring.

Kamchak, on kaiilaback, would sit in fury regarding the distant, white walls of Turia. He could not prevent the supplying of the city by air. He lacked siege engines, and the men, and the skills, of the northern cities. He stood as a nomad, in his way baffled at the walls raised against him.

“I wonder,” I said, “why the tarnsmen have not struck at the wagons with fire arrows why they do not attack the bosk themselves, slaying them from the air, forcing you to withdraw to protect the beasts.”

It seemed to be a simple, elementary strategy. There was, after all, no place on the prairies to hide the wagons or the bosk, and tarnsmen could easily reach them anywhere within a radius of several hundred pasangs.

“They are mercenaries,” growled Kamchak.

“I do not understand your meaning,” I said.

“We have paid them not to burn the wagons nor slay the bosk,” said he.

“They are being paid by both sides?” I asked.

“Of course,” said Kamchak, irritably.

For some reason this angered me, though, naturally, I was pleased that the wagons and boss; were yet safe. I suppose I was angered because I myself was a tarnsman, and it seemed somehow improper for warriors astride the mighty tarns to barter their favours indiscriminately for gold to either side.

“But,” said Kamchak, “I think in the end Saphrar of Turia will meet their price and the wagons will be fired and the bosk slain” He gritted his teeth. “He has not yet met it,” said Kamchak, “because we have not yet harmed him nor made him feel our presence.”

I nodded.

“We will withdraw,” said Kamchak. He turned to a subordinate. “Let the wagons be gathered,” he said, “and the bosk turned from Turia.”

“You are giving up?” I asked.

Kamchak’s eyes briefly gleamed. Then he smiled. “Of course,” he said.

I shrugged.

I knew that I myself must somehow enter Turia, for in Turia now lay the golden sphere. I must somehow attempt to seize it and return it to the Sardar. Was it not for this purpose that I had come to the Wagon Peoples? I cursed the fact that I had waited so long even to the time of the Omen Taking for thereby had I lost the opportunity to try for the sphere myself in the wagon of Kutaituchik. Now, to my chagrin, the sphere lay not in a Tuchuk wagon on the open prairie but, presumably, in the House of Saphrar, a merchant stronghold, behind the high, white walls of Turia.

I did not speak to Kamchak of my intention, for I was confident that he would have, and quite properly, objected to so foolish a mission, and perhaps even have attempted to prevent my leaving the camp.

Yet I did not know the city. I could not see how I might enter. I did not know how I might even attempt to succeed in so dangerous a task as that which I had set myself.

The afternoon among the wagons was a busy one, for they were preparing to move. Already the herds had been eased westward, away from Turia toward Thassa, the distant sea.

There was much grooming of wagon bosk, checking of harness and wagons, cutting of meat to be dried hanging from the sides of the moving wagons in the sun and wind. In the morning the wagons, in their long lines, would follow the slowly moving herds away from Turia. Meanwhile the Omen I Taking, even with the participation of the Tuchuk haruspexes, continued for the haruspexes of the people would remain behind until even the final readings had been completed. I had heard, from a master of hunting sleen, that the Omens were developing predictably, several to one against the choice of a Ubar San. Indeed, the difficulty of the Tuchuks with the Turians had possibly, I guessed, exerted its influence on an omen or two in passing. One could hardly blame the Kassars, the Kataii and Paravaci for not wanting to be led by a Tuchuk against Turia or for not wanting to acquire the Tuchuk troubles by uniting with them in any fashion. The Paravaci were particularly insistent on maintaining the independence of the peoples

Since the death of Kutaituchik, Kamchak had turned ugly in manner. Now he seldom drank or joked or laughed. I missed his hitherto frequent proposals of contests, races and wagers. He now seemed dour, moody, consumed with hatred for Turia and Turians. He seemed particularly vicious with Aphris. She was Turian. When he returned that night from the wagon of Kutaituchik to his own wagon he strode angrily to the sleen cage where he had confined Aphris with Elizabeth during the putative attack. He unlocked the door and ordered the Turian maiden forth, commanding her to stand before him, head down. Then, without speaking, to her consternation he tore swiftly away the yellow camisk and fastened slave bracelets on her wrists. “I should whip you,” he said. The girl trembled. “But why, Master?” she asked.

“Because you are Turian,” he said. The girl looked at him with tears in her eyes. Roughly Kamchak took her by the arm and thrust her into the sleen cage beside the miserable Elizabeth Cardwell. He shut the door and locked it. “Master?” questioned Aphris. “Silence, Slave,” he said. The girl dared not speak. “There both of you will wait for the Iron Master,” he snarled, and turned abruptly, and went to the stairs to the wagon. But the Iron Master did not come that night, or the next, or the next. In these days of siege and war there were more important matters to attend to than the branding and collaring of female slaves. “Let him ride with his Hundred,” Kamchak said. “They will not run away let them wait like she-sleep in their cage not knowing on which day the iron will come.” Also, perhaps for no reason better than his suddenly found hatred for Aphris of Turia, he seemed in no hurry to free the girls from their confinement.

“Let them crawl out,” he snarled, “begging for a brand.”

Aphris, in particular, seemed utterly distraught by Kamchak’s unreasoning cruelty, his callous treatment of herself and Elizabeth perhaps most by his sudden, seeming indifference to her. I suspected, though the girl would not have dreamed of making the admission, that her heart as well as her body might nova rightfully have been claimed as his by the cruel Ubar of the Tuchuks. Elizabeth Cardwell refused to meet my eyes, and would not so much as speak to me. “Go away!” she would cry. “Leave me!” Kamchak, once a day, at night, the hour in which sleen are fed, would throw the girls bits of bosk meat and fill a pan of water kept in the cage. I remonstrated with him frequently in private but he was adamant. He would look at Aphris and then return to the wagon and sit cross-legged, not speaking, for hours, staring at the side of the wagon. Once he pounded the rug on the polished floor in front of him and cried out angrily, as though to remind himself of some significant and inalterable fact, “She is Turian! Turian!” The work of the wagon was done by Tuka and another girl, whom Kamchak hired for the purpose. When the wagons were to move, Tuka was to walk beside the cart of the sleen cage, drawn by a single bosk, and with a bosk stick guide the animal. I once spoke harshly to her when I saw her cruelly poke Elizabeth Cardwell through the bars with the bosk stick. Never did she do so again when I was nearby. She seemed to leave the distressed, red-eyed Aphris of Turia alone, perhaps because she was Turian, perhaps because she had no grievance against her. “Where now is the pelt of the red larl, Slave?” Tuka would taunt Elizabeth, threatening her with the bosk stick. “You will look pretty with a ring in your nose!” she would cry. “You will like your collar! Wait until you feel the iron, Slave like Tuka!” Kamchak never reproved Tuka, but I would silence her when I was present. Elizabeth endured the insults as though paying no attention, but sometimes at night I could hear her sobbing.