Blood Brothers of Gor

Chapter 28 FIGHTING CONTINUES

"See?" asked Cuwignaka.

"Yes," I said. Before the lines of the Yellow Knives, some three hundred yards away, to the west, riders rode back and forth, with feathered lances.

It was now late in the afternoon.

"They are preparing for an attack," said Cuwignaka. "They are exorting their warriors to be brave."

"Yes," I said. I had now, again, taken my place in the Kaiila lines. I had ridden to the perimeter of our rearward lines, there, for the second time, to inspect the deployment of archers, the placement of the stakes, the rigging of the overhead nets. I found all in order. Had I not done so I would have conveyed my suggestions to Cuwignaka who, in turn, would have relayed them to Hci. He, then, would have brought them to the attention of Mahpiyasapa or of Kahintokapa, One-Who-Walks-Before, who was in charge of this sector of our position. Kahintokapa, of the Casmu band, was a member of the prestigious Yellow-Kailla Riders. This rather roundabout procedure, providing we had the time in which it might function, seemed advisable to both Cuwignaka and myself. We doubted that either Mahpiyasapa or Kahintokapa would much relish receiving direct advice from two fellows as lowly in the camp as ourselves. On the other hand, Hci had been scrupulously honest, somewhat to our surprise, in making it clear to his father and Kahintokapa the source of his earlier recommendations for defense against the attacks of the Kinyanpi. That he had even considered my counsel, let alone heeded it and conveyed it, and as mine, to Mahpiyasapa and Kahintokala, had surprised both Cuwignaka and myself. Neither of us had expected this, not of Hci, from whom we looked for little but arrogance and vanity. Too, to our surprise, when we had come to join the warriors they had opened their rnaks to permit us to take our place among them. We had not fled. We had not gone to wait with the women and children. We had come with shields and lances. They opened their ranks. We then, one who wore the dess of a woman, and one who was only a slave, took our place among them.

"I think they will be coming soon," said Cuwignaka.

"Yes," I said.

At our rearward lines I had seen Kahintokapa. He had raised his hand to me, palm open, in greeting. I had returned this gesture. It was almost as though I were not a slave. He had his shield again in its cover, as he had had earlier. He would withdraw it from the cover for combat, of course.

"They are probably wiating for the Kinyanpi," said Cuwignaka.

"I think so," I said.

In my return to our lines I had stopped to see Grunt. He was near the area where the women and children were gathered. He, with some of the women, was nursing the wounded. Wasnapohdi was with him. That we had turned the attack of the Kinyanpi had inspirited him. "The camp can be held, I am sure of it!" he had said.

"I think so," I had said.

"The Yellow Knives have been quite successful," he had said. "They have obtained numerous kaiila, much loot and many women. Surpirse is now no longer with them. I know such men. They will soon withdraw. Obtaining further loot would be too costly to them."

"They have not yet withdrawn," I had said.

"I do not understand that," he had said.

"Nor do I," I had admitted. It had seemed strange to me that the Yellow Knives, after the difficulites of taking the camp had been made clear to them, had not withdrawn. One would have expected that of red savages.

"They remain in the field?" he had asked.

"Yes," I had said.

"Interesting," he had said.

When I had left Grunt I had ridden a hundred yards or so away, to look at the remains of the council lodge. Little now remianed but its poles. It had been the central target of the inital attack of the kinyanpi, the Flighted Ones. Hundreds of arrows, I had heard, had penetrated its lodge skins. In it, and about it, had been the scene of a massacure. It was little wonder that watonka had not been eager to attend the council. It was fortunate that Mahpiyasapa, with Grunt, had been outside the camp at the time of this attack. Most of the accumulated leadership, wisdom and experience of the Kaiila people, in all the bands, had perished in a matter of Ehn. One of the few survivors had been Kahintokapa, who had cut his way through the skins and fled. A task force of Yellow Knives had penetrated the camp, too, to that point, and it was they who had killed and mutilated the wounded, and burned the lodge. A similar task force had attacked the dance lodge. These task forces had then withdrawn. Shortly thereafter the resistance had formed, led by Mahpiyasapa and Kahintokapa. I looked into the darkened circle outlined by the long poles. Within it, still, were bodies, and the upright shaves of countless arrows. It had indeed been a dark and bloody day for the Kaiila. Many things, incidentally, puzzled me about this attack, generally. One was the alliance and cooperation of the Yellow Knives and Kinyanpi. These were not traditional allies. It seemed to me unusual that they had cated in this carefully coordinated fashion. Alliances between tribes unfamiliar to one another commonly took place only in resistnce to white intrusion into the Barrens. Another peculiarity of the attack lay in the nature of its engineering. It did not follow the normal, rather restrained, small-scale, almost ritualized patters of conflict common among the red savages. For example, the meretricious proposal of a spurious peace, to lure the leadership of a people into a small area, there to be devastatingly attacked, while not beyond the intelligence or cunning of red savages, did not seem at all typical of their approach to militar matters. Certainly it was a surprising kind of generalship to find in the Barrens. It seemed to have little to do with traditions of honor and the meticulous counting of coup. Lastly, it seemed almost incomprehensible, given the nature of the beliefs of the red savages, that the attack had been mounted on a people at the time of festivals. This, in the Barrens, is something in the nature of blasphemy or sacrilege. It was hard for me to believe that the Yellow Knives, red savages, themselves, could have even conceived of such a thing. This, again, I had to observe, suggested, at least, the advent of a new form of gernalship, the adoption of novel tactics, in the Barrens. To be sure, I had to admit that this sort of thing, particularly with the collusion of Watonka, apparently slain later by those whose interests he had served, had been quite effective. That was undeniable.

I looked again at the bodies, and arrows, within ghe remains of the council lodge.

I was not pleased with what I saw. I then turned my kaiila away.

I had then ridden back toward my place in our forward lines. In this short journey I had passed several kaiila, picketed under the ropes and cloths. There were not enough for all those who would have to ride. I also passed large stocks of meat, gathered from the drying racks by the women and put on robes under the netting. This meat would be improtant for the Kaiila. It could make the difference between surviving the winter and losing many lives in the cold and snows. I also passed some lines and circles of female slaves. Most were kneeling and stripped, and secured with hair ties. Long hair is enforced on most Gorean slaves by their masters. It is aesthetically beautiful and much, from the point of view of diverse coiffures, revealing new dimentiosn of the slave's loveliness, may be done with it. Too, as is well known among masters and slaves, its application, in the experssion and pursuance of a slave's submission and service, can do much to enhance and deepen a master's pleasures; it is erotically useful. Too, in the absence of more customary restraints, such as, say, binding fiber or graceful, steel shackles, it may serve as a bond.

The commercial value of long hair might also be mentioned. Aside from the obvious fact that it might improve the price of a girl in her sale or resale, it can also be sheared and sold. Free women sometimes buy hair for wigs or falls, and, although the hair they purchase is always certified as coming only from free women, there is little doubt that it is often taken from female slaves.

Too, intrestingly, female hair is prized for catapult ropes. It is not only stronger and more resistent than hemp but it possesses beter properties of weather resistance, being less affected by moisture and temperature changes. When a city is under siege, particularly if the siege is prolonged, even free women will often have thier hair shorn, contributing it then to the supplies for municipal defense. Considering the usual vanity of Goreans, both male and female, over their appearance, this is a patriotic sacrifice of no little magnitude. It is partiuclarly significant when one understands that the women know very well that if they fall inot the hands of the enemy, with their hair shorn, they may expect to be sold into low slaveries, such as agricultural servitudes or thos of the mills. Sometimes as time passes, the foremen in such places come to realize that they have an incredible beauty in their power. They often hide such women from their superiors, keeping them for themselves. An additional advantage of long hair in a female slave, incidentally, is that it gives the master additional power over her, for, as he is the master, it is his decision whether or not she shall be albe to keep it. One of the commands a Gorean woman most fears to hear, wheather she is a captive or a slave, is "Shear her."

The kneeling position is, of course, a suitable one for slaves. A slave will normally assume such a position on entering the presence of her master or a free person. She will probably remain in it until permitted to rise. It is a common position, too, for her to assume when she is in attendance of a master, for example, awaiting his notice or commands. Too, she will usually speak to her master from this position, unles, of course, she is lying down, as in making her reports to him, inquiring as to his will, answering questions, and so on. Some masters approve it, too, for purposes of general conversation. Most masters, incidentally, enjoy talking with their slaves, immensely; after all, the slave is not a mere contracual partner, in effect, a business associate; she is a prized possession; she is a treasure, and she is all one's own.

Some Goreans think if the Free Companionship as being a form of contract slavery; this is not, of course, precisely correct; on the other hand, if more women took that definition seriously, I have little doubt but what free companionships would be far more rewarding than they now are, for many couples. They might then, under that interpretation, and held contractually enforceable on the woman, be that next best thing in her actual slavery. There is no full and adequate substitute, of course, given the dominance/submission ratios and the order of nature, for the uncompromised, and full and total bondage of the female. Once this is institutionalized and legalized, as it is on Gor, we have, then, the union of nature and civilization, a union in which civilization no longer functions as a counterbiological antithesis to nature but rather, perhaps, as an extension and flowering of nature herself, a union in which natural relationships are fulfilled and furthered.

That most of the kneeling women were stripped did not mean that most of them were from the outlying herds. For the most part those herds had probably, by now, fallen to Yellow Knives. Rather the stripping of these women, most of whom would presumably be slaves from the inner parts of the camp, was, in large measure, a security precaution, the camp being under attack. It is difficult for a naked woman to conceal weapons. That most of the women wore bonds was also a security precaution. It is common for Goreans, in times of crisis or danger, to secure their slaves. At such times slaves, like other animals, must be strictly controlled. It would not do, for example, to have them running about, adding to the confusion. Similarly, slaves are to be absolutely unable, even if they wish, to interfere with the defense or abet the attackers, in any way; similarly, they are to be precluded from attempting to take advantage of the confusion, perhaps in order, foolishly, to attempt to escape. They are the prizes of the action, not participants in it. Helpless, they must abide its outcome. It will be time enough later for them to learn their fate.

They were fastened, for the most part, in two different forms of hair ties. In one, the wrists of the woman were bond before her body, lifted and raised, in the hair of the woman before her. Another woman's wrists, then, would be bound in her hair, and so on. Some of these women were doffled in lines, and others in circles, the last woman's hair serving to bind the wrists of the first woman. The other form of hair tie had the hands of a woman tied behind her back to the hair of the woman who, her head lowered, knelt behind her.

Once again, some were secured in lines, and others in circles, the hands of the last woman being tied in the hair of the first. This second form of hair tie, done in lines, incidentally, resembles a comon coffle arrangement, achieved with a set of relatively short thongs each about five feet in length. The first woman's hands are then bound behind her with another thong, its free end then being take up and bound about the neck of the woman behind her, and so on. An advantage of this coffle arrangement is that women may be easily taken from it, and added to it.

A similar arrangement, of course, may be achieved with chains, each length of chain terminating at one end with a pair of slave bracelets and, at the other end, with a closable, lockable neck ring. The last woman on the coffle, of course, has the neck ring attached to her own bracelets and chain locked about her own neck. An advantage of the chains over the thongs, of course, is that the chain cannot be chewed through. Some of the other girls under the ropes and cloths were tied in more conventional fashions. Some were not even tied at all. An example was Oiputake, or Kiss, whom I well knew. It was she whom I had taken from a herd earlier, and imporved. Too, it was she who had alerted us to the fact, thinking little of it at the time, that the Yellow-Knife chieftains in camp were not civil cheiftains by war chiefs.

"Master!" she had cried to me, extending her hand to me.

"Be silent, Slave," I had told her.

"Yes, Master," she had said. I had then ridden on. I did not wish to converse with her at the time. She could not follow me. She stood within a small dirt circle, probably drawn with the heel of a moccasin about her. It was a confinement circle. She could not leave it without permission of a free person. I did stop my kaiila briefly beside a blond girl, lying on her belly in the dirt. She trembled, knowing I had stopped near her.

"Who are you?" I asked.

"I am a nameless slave of Cotanka, of the Wismahi," she said.

She was the slave who, earlier, had been used by Yellow Knives as, in effect, a lure girl, one used to distract or, say, entrap a warrior. Cotanka had been fortunate. He had not been killed. He now owned her. I did not think her lot would be an easy one. She wore the "bonds of a master's will." Grunt had put her in them. She lay on her stomach. Her wrists were crossed behind her. Her ankles, too, were crossed. She was "bound." She could not rise to her feet. Yet there was not a rope or a strap on her body. She was "bound by the master's will." She could not move from this position unless, at the word of a free person, she was freed from it.

To break the position otherwise is to be instantly slain.

No longer now were some of the Yellow Knives riding about, back and forth before their lines, moving their lances about, preparing their parties for combat, exorting them, doubtless, to boldness and bravery.

The kaiila of the enemy were now aligned towards us.

"Make ready your lances, make ready your knives." chanted Mahpiyasapa, riding before our lines. "May your eyes be keen. May your movements be swift and sure. May your medicine be strong!"

"They will be coming soon," said Cuwignaka.

"Yes," I said.

"What are they waiting for?" asked a man.

"The Kinyanpi," said another.

I glanced over to Hci. I saw his shield move, as though by itself. Then he steadied it. I felt the hair rise on the back of my neck. I felt goose flesh.

This movement of the shield had not been unnoticed by Mahpiyasapa. He rode to Hci.

"What is wrong with your shield?" he asked.

"Nothing," said Hci.

"Fall back," said Mahpiyasapa. "Do not fight." Then he rode from him.

Hci, however, did not leave his place in our lines.

"Perhaps the Kinyanpi will not come," said a man.

"The Kinyanpi!" cried voices to our rear, the shout being relayed from man to man.

I looked back.

"It is the Kinyanpi," said Cuwignaka, looking back, too.

"Yes," I said. They are coming in two flights, two darknesses, one from the east, one from the southeast.

We gave our attention to Mahpiyasapa, awaiting his signal.

Mahpiyasapa, before our lines, lifted and lowered his lance.

We had little doubt as to what the tactics of the Kinyanpi would be this time. They would not repeat their earlier mistake of a direct, low-level attack against our defenses. They would either keep their height and rain arrows down upon us or act in support of the Yellow Knives. As we could protect ourselves resonalby well with shields from simple, distance archery it seemed obvous, then, that our two enemies would act in conjunction. If we warded blows of Yellow Knives we could not, at the same time, protect ourselves from aerial fire. Similarly, if we attempted to protect ourselves from aerial fire, by lifting our shields, we would be exposing ourselves to the Yellow Knives' plane of attack. Presumably we would await the attack of the Yellow Knives under the ropes and netting. This would make overhead archery more difficult for the Kinyanpi but would also give the Yellow Knives the momentum of attack.

As soon as Mahpiyasapa had lowered his lance we placed about our bodies yellow scarves and other strips of yellow cloth. It was in this way that Watonka, the Yellow-Knife war chiefs, Bloketu, Iwoso and others had been identified as personages not to be fired upon by the Kinyanpi.

Again Mahpiyasapa raised and lowered his lance, and then he pointed it toward the enemy.

As one man, kaiila squealing, warriors howling, feathers flying, lances lowering, our lines leapt toward the enemy.

We struck them, the milling, startled, wheeling about, kaiila rearing, a full Ihn before the turf was dark with the wild, swiftly moving shadows of the Kinyanpi overhead.

The engagement was brief, perhaps only four or five Ehn, and the Yellow Knives, howling and whooping, in full flight, speeding away, forsook the field. I lifted my bloody lance in salute to Cuwignaka. The Kinyanpi, too, had withdrawn. Scarcely a dozen arrows had fallen amongst us. Of these, of those that had found targets, they reposed in the bodies of Yellow Knives. In what consternation must the Kinyanpi have viewed the plethora of yellow signals beneath them. Surely they would have understood that most of such might be worn by Kaiila, but, in flight, moving swiftly, uncertain of their desiderated targets they had, for most part, restrained their fire.

"They will not be back!" laughed a man.

"See the signla of Mahpiyasapa," said another. "Let us return to our lodges."

We turned our kaiila about and, slowly, not hurrying, well pleased with ourselves, tired, but quietly jubilant in our victory, made our way back toward our camp.

"Look!" said a man, pointing back, when we had reached again our former lines.

"I do not believe it," said another.

We looked back, those three or four hundred yards, across the field. At the crest of a rise, once again, suddenly emerging, silhouetted against the sky, were lines of Yellow Knives.

"They have regrouped," I said. This was evident. Yet I had not expected it. This manifested a type of discipline that I would have expected of routed red savages, and certainly, in any case not this soon.

"I thought they had gone," said a man.

"I, too," said another.

"Surely they have enough women and kaiila," said a man. "It seems like they should have left long ago."

"There seems little enough for them to gain in further fighting," said a man.

"They would have to pay dearly for anything further," said another.

"Yet they are there," said another.

"Yes," said another.

"It is not like Yellow Knives," said a man.

"I do not understand it," said another fellow.

"Nor I," said another.

I, too, wondered at the reapperance of the Yellow-Knife lines.

It was dusk. This, too, was puzzling. Red savages, on the whole, prefer to avoid fighting in darkness. In the darkness it is difficult to be skillful and, in the absence of uniforms, friends my be too easily mistaken for foes. Some savages, too, prefer to avoid night combat for medicine reasons. There are many theories connected with such things. I shall mention two. One is that if an idividual is slain at night, he may, quite literally, have difficulty in the darkness in finding his way to the medicine world. Another is that the individual who is slain at night may find the portals of the medicine world closed against him. These beliefs, and others like them, it seems clear, serve to discourage night combat.

One may, as in many such cases, then, wonder whether night combat is discouraged because of such beliefs, or whether such beliefs may not have been instituted to discourage night fighting, with all of its confusions, alarms and terrors. On the other hand, there is no doubt whatsoever that many red savages take such beliefs with great seriousness. The life world, and consciousness, of the red savage, it must be clearly understood, is quite different from that of, say, a secular rationalist or a scientifically oriented objectivist. One of the most common, and serious, mistakes that can be make in crosscultural encounters is to assume that everyone one meets, is, in effect, very much like oneself. Their personal world, the world of their experience, their experiential world, may be quite different from yours. If it is not understood in its own terms, as he understands it, it is likely to seem irrational, eccentric or foolish. Properly understood, on the other hand, his world is plausible, in its terms, as is yours. This is not to say that there is nothing to choose between life worlds; it is only to say that we do not all share the same life world.

"Why are they not going away?" asked a man.

"It will soon be dark," said another.

"They must have very strong medicine," said another.

"Perhaps," said another, uneasily.

I saw Hci struggle for a moment to again control his shield. Then, again, he had steadied it.

"What are they waiting for?" asked a man.

"Thier ranks are opening," said a man.

"Something is coming through them," said another man.

"It is a sleen," said one man.

"No," said another.

"It is on all fours," said another man.

"Surely it is a sleen," said another.

"It is too large to be a sleen," said another.

"Aiii!" cried a man. "It is rising to its feet. It is walking on two feet!"

"It is a thing from the medicine world!" cried a man.

"It is a medicine helper of the Yellow Knives!" cried another.

Almost at the same time, from behind us, thee were cries of consternation. "Riders!" we heard. "Riders!"

We wheeled our kaiila about. At the back of the camp, thee were screaming and the sounds of numberous kaiila, squealing and snorting, their clawed feet tearing at the grass. At full speed, pennons flying, lances lowered, bucklers set, in sweeping, measured, staggered attack lines, waves of riders struck the camp.

"They are white men!" cried a man near me.

I saw a woman, running, caught in the back with a lance, between the shoulder blades, flung to the dust, the lance then withdrawn. It had been professionally done.

"White men!" cried another man near me.

I saw another man toward the rear, an archer, discharge an arrow, and leap to the side, to avoid a rider. He was hit by the next rider, one of those in the succeeding wave, its riders staggered with those of the first. In this type of formation, given the speed of the charging kaiila, the distance between successive waves is about forty to fifty feet. This is supposed to provide the next rider with a suitable response interval. If the first rider misses the traget the second, thus, has time to adjust for its change of position. From the point of view of the target, of course, which may even be off balance, it is difficult, in the interval involved, to set itself for a second evasive action. Its probles are further complicated, also, of course, by the imminent arrival of even further attack wavs. The primary purpose of the staggering of the attack-wave riders is to bring a target which may have escaped from the attack lane of one rider almost immediately into the attack lane of another.

Certain psychological factors, also, in this type of situation, tend to favor the attacker. As a target's attention tends to be absorbed in avoiding one attack it is less prepared to react efficiently to another. This is a moment within which the target may find itself within the lance range of the next rider. This type of formations is generally not useful against an enemy which is protected by breastworks, pits or stakes, or a settled infantry, its long pikes set, fixed butt down in the turf, the weapons oriented diagonally; the points trained on the breasts of the approaching mounts. It is also generally ineffective against other cavalry for its permits a shattering and penetraition of its own lines. It tends to be effective, however, against an untrained infantry or almost any enemy afoot. The archer, struck by the rider, spun to the side, the lance blade passing through his neck.

"White men!" I herd.

"Turn about!" cried Mahpiyasapa. "Fight! Defend the camp!"

The lines spun about and the men of Mahpiyasapa, whooping and crying out, dust scattering, sped back under the ropes and between the lodges to engage this new enemy. I held my position.

The white men were undoubtedly the mercenary soldiers of Alfred, the mercenary captain of Port Olni. With something like a thousand men he had entered the Barrens, with seventeen Kurii, an execution squad from the steel worlds, searching for Half-Ear, Zarendargar, the Kur war genderal who had been in command of the supply complex, and staging area, in the Gorean arctic, that which was being readied to support the projected Kur invasion of Gor. This complex had been destroyed. Evidence had suggested that Zarendargar had escaped, and was to be found in the Barrens. Once Zarendargar and I, in the north, as soldiers, had shared paga. I had come to the Barrens to warn him of his danger. Then I has fallen salve to the Kaiila. A wagon train of settlers, with which Alfred had joined forces, had been attacked. A massacre had taken place. Alfred, however, with some three to four hundred mounted men, leaving most of his command to perish, had escaped to the southeast. From the southeast, I remembered, the kailiauk had come early. From the southeast, too, had come the Kinyanpi.

Earlier I had conjectured that Alfred and his men had returned to civilization. I now realized that was false. Somehow they had come into league with the Kinyanpi and perhaps through them, and in virtue of some special considerations, the nature of which I suspected I knew, been able to make contact with, and enlist the aid of, Yellow Knives. A fearful pattern had suddenly emerged. The discipline of the Yellow Knives now became more meaningful. So, too, did their apparent willingness to fight in the half darkness of dusk. Suddenly, too starkly plausible, became such untypical anomalies of the Barrens as the meretricious proposal of a false peace, the spurious pretext of a council in order to gather together and decimate the high men of the Kaiila, and even the unprecedented sacrilege of attacking a people at the time of its great dances and festivals. These things spoke not of the generalship of the Barrens but of a generalship alien to the Barrens, a generalship of a very different sort of mind. Even so small a detail as the earlier, small-scale attack of the Kinyanpi now became clear. It must have been indeed, as I had earlier conjectured, an excursionary probe to determine the test defenses, before the main force, held in reserve, was committed. The generalship again suggested that of the cities, not of the Barrens, that of white soldiers, not red savages.

I looked wildly back toward the Yellow Knives. As I had expected they were now advancing. Their feathered lances were dropping into the attack position. Their kaiila were moving forward, and gradually increasing their speed. By the time they reached the camp the kaiila, not spent, would be at full charge. The Yellow Knife lines were now sweeting past the creature which had emerged earlier from their rank. It stood in the grass, the warriors sweeting about it. It was some eight feet tall. It lifted its shaggy arms. It was a Kur. We would be taken on two fronts.

Behind me there was fighting. I turned about, I saw soldiers cutting down portions of the ropes and cloths.

"Kinyanpi!" I heard. "They are coming again!"

"It is the end," I thought. "The Kurii had won." The Kurii, now, allied with the Yellow Knives, and supported by the Flighted Ones, the Kinyanpi, could systematically serch the Barrens, unimpeded in their serch for Zarendargar, and if an entire people, the nation of the Kaiila, should stand in their way, then what was it to them, if this nation should be destroyed?

I heard the whooping of the Yellow Knives growing closer.

I then turned my kaiila and rode toward the back of the camp.