Swordsmen of Gor

Chapter Seventeen THE BATTLE

I had no doubt that the cavalries ranked against us, which would intend to confront us and engage in the traditional modalities of Gor’s aerial warfare, consisted of veteran tarnsmen. The heavy shields and mighty spears borne by them would alone far outweigh the armament and accouterments of my men. Too, the tarns of some were encumbered by armor, and the beak and talons were still shod with steel, turning their mounts into little more than massive, lumbering aerial tanks. Their missile weapons were the short quarrels and the stout, metal bolts of the stirrup and crank-and-ratchet crossbows. I knew the armament and tactics of such forces well, having been trained in them, and I had designed my forces, following the Tuchuk model, to deal with massive infantry and earth-shaking tharlarion charges, now adapted to flight, to deal with them. The infantrymen of the sky would be effective, I conjectured, only against forces similarly equipped, and trained. Indeed, the common Gorean warrior tended to hold the bow, even the peasant bow, in contempt, as weapons unworthy of the hand of a warrior, whose proper weapons were the shield, spear, and sword. His reliance on the crossbow was more a concession to the difficulty of closure in the sky than a respect for its military potential. His preference was to bring the combatant birds together, to the point at which, across the saddle, his spear might come into play. Seldom, even, did he have a spear strap, to better secure the weapon. His thinking here was that such a strap might wrench him in the saddle, possibly breaking his back, if the weapon became anchored in a shield or body. The temwood lance, on the other hand, light, lengthy, and supple, handled more easily than the heavier weapon, and had a farther reach. Too, the narrowness of its blade, in the Tuchuk fashion, unlike the broader blade of the common war spear, was designed to minimize the danger of its anchoring in either a shield or body. To be sure, the major value of the lance, as I saw it, would be in fencing away enemy birds, or, in a low, swooping flight, attacking ground troops or tharlarion riders. A tarnsman’s usual close-to-the-ground flight was used to rope fleeing females, thence to be hauled helplessly to the saddle. A similar approach may be used on the high bridges or against unsuspecting loungers or sunbathers on the roofs of high cylinders. The capture of females of the enemy is a popular sport with tarnsmen, in which tallies are kept, and many a collared, tunicked beauty in a given city has, at one time or another, felt the suddenly encircling capture rope tighten mercilessly upon her.

Such women, it might be mentioned, in passing, once enslaved, are irremediably slaves. They are rejected as free females not only by their former compatriots, with whom they once shared a Home Stone, but by their families, as well. Once collared, as the saying is, always a slave. Even if such a woman is recaptured by fellows of her former city she will be brought back to her former city as only another slave, and will be held there as a slave, and a low slave. To be sure, she is likely to be soon sold out of the city, as her very existence in that city is regarded as an embarrassment, and a reminder of the dishonor she has brought to her fellow citizens, her Home Stone, her caste, her clan, and family. Once collared her life has changed; once collared, her old life is superseded, even obliterated; it is beyond recall. It is gone. The ties have been cut. She is now no more than property, and knows herself as such, and she then, in all her plaintive helplessness, hopelessness, and needs, in her astonished, newly liberated, vulnerable femininity, seeks her proper place, at a man’s feet. Perhaps then, for the first time in her life, she has a purpose, and an identity; her anomie and ennui are gone; she is now meaningful. She now, perhaps for the first time in her life lives, truly lives, though now as no more than a benighted slave, lives as she must, and now desires to live, as a slave, for her master.

It is no wonder that they are kept slaves.

What else is to be done with them?

They are good now for nothing else.

They have been spoiled for freedom.

And what man does not want one at his feet?

Lord Nishida had informed me that these tarnsmen had been recruited in more than two dozen cities. Although the numbers were prodigious, considered merely as military units, these riders, I supposed, would be less a cavalry than a conglomerate or horde. They would be, I supposed, little used to riding together, and would presumably lack familiar, common signals and maneuvers. They would expect, in numbers, if in nothing else, to overwhelm and destroy a smaller force. I would learn later that our foes of the afternoon numbered better than two thousand, to our two hundred. To be sure, more important than simple numbers was firepower, and our two hundred possessed the firepower of a group much larger, if the larger group was armed in the usual manner. Too, the size of the group is unimportant if it cannot make contact with the enemy. And the size can be a handicap from the point of view of movement and supply. Smaller groups, obviously, with a given quantity of supplies, can be kept much longer in the field. A larger group may well defeat a smaller group but it cannot do so if the smaller, more agile group refuses to engage to its disadvantage. All I could see at the time were hundreds of tarnsmen, some so closely clustered that the birds, unable to keep their spacings, literally, here and there, buffeted into one another. Our centuries had swept to the sides and allowed the enemy to proceed to its destination, which was Tarncamp. As hundreds of birds alighted in the plaza of training, tarnsmen dismounted, to fire the camp. On the ground, of course, the tarnsman was a common infantryman, and I had no doubt their incursion, despite their superiority in numbers, would be fiercely met by the Ashigaru of the Pani and several of our mercenaries. The Pani, I was sure, would be loyal to their lord, their daimyo, Lord Nishida, for that seemed to be their way, and a cornered mercenary, one with no hope of a higher fee or escape, much like the cornered seventy-pound canal urt of Port Kar, is a most desperate and dangerous foe. The mercenary who fights for his life is more to be feared, surely, than one who fights merely for his pay. The larls, of course, prowled, still, beyond the wands. Some of our foes would learn that, to their dismay. I do not doubt that the invading force, for the moment seemingly unopposed, would suppose our smaller cavalry had judiciously forsaken the field, even as, unbeknownst to the central body of the invaders, dozens of our tarnsmen, darting to and fro, were shredding its margins. If a tarnsman were so maddened, or unwary, as to pursue a given foe, two others from behind, to the sides, would close upon him. When groups of enemy tarnsmen, in their rear, or at the sides, would flight after our fellows, our fellows would simply flight away, and leave them behind, separated from their group, and thus, soon, spread out, to be exposed to the crossfire of tens and twenties who seemed to appear from nowhere. Many fled back to the group where the birds milled, confused, and arrows, then, like sleet, unmet, fell amongst them. And in the meantime the prime body of the invaders had dismounted, most in the plaza of training, confident that the camp was theirs, naively unaware of the blood in the sky. But then tens and twenties from each of the centuries fell upon them, as they might upon unsuspecting, exposed verr. Hundreds of the enemy must have already alit in the plaza of training and set about their work, but even now others, newly arrived, startled, looking upward, saw birds diving, soaring in, and, in moments, were in the midst of sheets of arrows. He who defended himself from one side with the shield could not simultaneously protect his back. Too, many fell victims to the backward-flighted arrow, in which I had trained my men. The enemy, to his relief, would often assume the danger past as the bird passed, only to be struck from behind by the backward flighted arrow, a device familiar to the Tuchuk. Interestingly, most of the invaders did not even realize the dangers they faced. I saw one dragging a slave girl by the hair toward his tarn. He did not reach it. Two buildings were aflame. The dojo was fired. I saw, too, flames consuming the stately pavilion of Lord Nishida. As the birds milled above, crowded and screaming, hemmed in by our fellows, their riders, wise now to the dangers of breaking formation, but much aware now, too, of hundreds of arrows fired into their mass of birds and men, which constituted a large, almost stationary target in the sky, knew themselves, to their terror, at the mercy of our soaring fellows. Indeed, men tried to bring their birds into the center of the flock, to protect themselves from arrows, and the interior positions were then fought for, as the enemy competed with one another, and wounded and lacerated one another, to command this cover. And unto this mass, from above, were hurled dozens of weighted nets, which tangled the birds, and riders, and dozens, half crippled, unable to fly, fell brokenly toward the earth, and some riders freed themselves of the safety straps and tried to leap to the saddle rings of other birds, and some failed to grasp them, and fell screaming to the earth. Others fell with the tarns to earth, the nets half cut to pieces. I saw another net fall gracefully, like a broad, circular, open veil, on a bird starting to climb from the plaza, and the bird fluttered back to the earth, screaming, protesting, rolling in the dust, the rider caught in the safety straps, and then the helmeted head was twisted about, and the body was inert, a raglike, meaningless object in the saddle. I saw one of our fellows, I think Tajima, take a mounting tarnsman, climbing to the saddle, with the temwood lance. The tarnsman was carried a dozen yards before he slipped from the lance, to the stirred dust below. Others of my fellows were soaring downward, lance in hand, hunting targets. Above, in the sky, suddenly, the gigantic, tumbling, fighting knot of birds and men broke, like a burst of alarmed jards, startled in their feeding, and hundreds fled. I saw tens and twenties, and prides, streaking after them. I turned away, for what ensued would be slaughter. A moment later, a cry to the side arrested my attention and I saw Torgus, grinning, gesturing with his lance to the south. His bannerman with his lance-mounted pennon was within yards of him. I feared for a moment reserves might be entering the field. But presumably such a cavalry as we engaged, massive, overconfident, and clumsy, would not think in terms of reserves, certainly not for turning the tides of battle. What would be the purpose when its enemy was understood to be overwhelmingly overmatched? How many tharlarion would it take to press to the earth a single, scampering field urt? And, clearly, Torgus had seemed pleased. I wheeled about, my gaze following the direction of his lance. Our fleeing foes had now broken apart into a rout of single flights. Their rallying would now seem out of the question. This maneuver, though I doubt it was centrally calculated or dictated, I thought wise of them. In this fashion many would escape, as their numbers still considerably exceeded those of their pursuers, and, if a pursuer successfully brought down one, two or more others would escape. But I did not regret that many of our foes might thusly escape. We held the sky, the high battle was at an end, our men, our training, our tactics, had been vindicated. There is little pleasure for the warrior in pursuing broken, terrified men, defeated and almost defenseless, though he can recognize the military value in doing so, following up the victory. It is good to consolidate a victory, to prevent regroupings and rallies, to further dispirit a foe, and such, and, obviously, any fellow one brings down today need not be met tomorrow. He whom you do not kill now may kill you later. But I thought that few of them would return. They would not be eager to return to Tarncamp. Too, one finds executions, so to speak, distasteful. “Victory!” cried Torgus, grinning. “Victory!”

“War!” I cried, and gestured downward, toward the plaza of training. The sky was ours, the ground was not.

With a laugh Torgus then, with a declination of his lance, followed by that of his bannerman, followed by the twenty, in its four prides, in its ranks, that twenty which was his personal guard, swooped downward to join the fray below.

Oddly, some of the invaders about the camp seemed unaware of the catastrophies that had overcome so many of their fellows.

This sort of thing, however, is not unknown in combat. Often one thinks a battle is won because one is successful in one’s own narrow corridor, on one’s own plot of ground, while a few hectares away it has been overwhelmingly lost. It is often difficult to know what is happening anywhere but where one is at the moment. A skirmish can be won and a battle lost, and a battle can be won while a war is lost. The weathers of war are not only difficult to predict, but are often, and sometimes for days, difficult to ascertain. The tale of the past is often told only in the future.

Looking downward I saw a swooping, riderless tarn seize a fellow in its talons and beat its way upward. Commonly the tarn strike breaks the back of the verr or tabuk, and then it begins to feed, while the animal is still alive. Sometimes it seizes the animal, carries it to a height, and then releases it, and then descends to feed. To one side I heard a long, wailing cry and saw a fellow dropped from some two or three hundred feet to the ground below, the riderless tarn, reverted without its rider, then descending to feed. Elsewhere another riderless tarn was pinning a fellow to the earth with one taloned foot, and striking at him with its beak. Then it had an arm loose and the ground about, to thrashing and screaming, was muddied with blood. Some of our tarns, most perhaps, had been captured in the wild. Lord Nishida, in his attempts to conceal his project, or to at least reduce a cognition of its extent, had wished to avoid any unusually large purchase of domestic tarns. There were many free now, however, on the plaza of training. Some of my men, dismounted, apparently oblivious of the fact that elsewhere fighting might still be raging, were gathering them in.