Tarnsman of Gor

Chapter 15 In Mintar's Compound

AR, BELEAGUERED AND DAUNTLESS, was a magnificent sight. Its splendid, defiant shimmering cylinders loomed proudly behind the snowy marble ramparts, its double walls — the first three hundred feet high; the second, separated from the first by twenty yards, four hundred feet high-walls wide enough to drive six tharlarion wagons abreast on their summits. Every fifty yards along the walls rose towers, jutting forth so as to expose any at tempt at scaling to the fire of their numerous archer ports.

Across the city, from the walls to the cylinders and among the cylinders, I could occasionally see the slight flash of sunlight on the swaying taro wires, literally hundreds of thousands of slender, almost invisible wires stretched in a protective net across the city. Dropping the taro through such a maze of wire would be an almost impossible task. The wings of a striking tarn would be cut from its body by such wires.

Within the city the Initiates, who had seized control shortly after the flight of Marlenus, would have already tapped the siege reservoirs and begun to ration the stores of the huge grain cylinders. A city such as Ar, properly commanded, might withstand a siege for a generation.

Beyond the walls were Pa-Kur's lines of investment, set forth with all the skill of Gor's most experienced siege engineers. Some hundreds of yards from the wall, just beyond crossbow range, a gigantic ditch was being dug by thousands of siege slaves and prisoners. When completed, it would be fifty or sixty feet wide, and seventy, or eighty feet deep. In back of the ditch slaves were piling up the earth which had been removed from the ditch, packing and hardening it into a rampart. On the summit of the rampart, where it was completed, were numerous archer blinds, movable wooden screens to shield archers and light missile equipment.

Between the ditch and the walls of the city, under the cover of darkness, thousands of sharpened stakes had been set, inclined toward the walls. I knew that the worst of such devices would be invisible. Indeed, several of the spaces between the stakes were probably occupied by covered pits, more sharpened stakes being fixed in the bottom. Also, half buried in the sands among the stakes and set in wooden blocks would be iron hooks, much like those used in ancient times on Earth and sometimes called spurs. Behind the great ditch, separated from it by some hundred yards, there was a smaller ditch, perhaps twenty feet wide and twenty feet deep, also with a rampart formed from the excavated earth. Surmounting this rampart was a palisade of logs, sharpened at the tips. In the walls, every hundred yards or so, was a log gate. Behind this wall were the innumerable tents of Pa-Kur's horde.

Here and there among the tents siege towers were being constructed. Nine towers were in evidence. It was unthinkable that they should top the walls of Ar, but with their battering rams they would attempt to break through at the lower levels. Tarasmen would make the attack at the summit of the walls. When it came time for Pa-Kur to attack, bridges would be constructed over the ditches. Over these bridges the siege towers would be rolled to the walls of Ar; over them his tharlarion cavalry would march; over them his horde would flow. Light engines, mostly catapults and ballistae, would be transported over the ditches by harnessed tarn teams.

One aspect of the siege which I knew would exist but which I obviously could not witness would be the sensitive duel of mine and countermine which must be taking place between the camp of Pa-Kur and the city of Ar. There would be numerous tunnels being worked even now toward the walls of Ar, and, from Ar; counter tunnels to meet them. Some of the most hideous fighting in the siege would undoubtedly take place far under the earth in the cramped, foul, torch lit confines of those serpentine passageways, some of them hardly large enough to permit a man to crawl. Many of the tunnels would be collapsed and others flooded. Given the depth of the foundations of Ar's mighty walls and the mantle of rock on which they were fixed, it would be extremely unlikely that her walls could be successfully undermined to the extent of bringing down a significant section, but it was surely possible that if one of the tunnels managed to pass unnoticed beneath the ramparts, it could serve to spill a line of soldiers into the city at night, enough men to overcome a gate crew and expose Ar to the onslaught of Pa-Kur's main forces.

I noted one thing that seemed puzzling for a moment. Pa-Kur had not protected his rear with the customary third ditch and rampart. I could see foragers and merchants moving to and from the camp unimpeded. I reasoned that Pa-Kur had nothing to fear and consequently chose not to employ his siege slaves and prisoners in unnecessary and time-consuming works. Still, it seemed that he had committed an error, if only according to the manuals of siege practice. If I had had a considerable force of men at my disposal, I could have exploited that error.

I brought the taro down near the far ranges of Pa-Kur's tents, where his camp ended, seven or eight miles from the city. I was not too surprised when I was not challenged; Pa-Kur's arrogance, or simply his rational as insurance, was such that no sentries, no signs and counter signs, had been arranged at the rear of the camp. Leading the taro, I entered the camp as casually as I might have strolled into a carnival or fair. I had no realistic or clearheaded plan, but was determined somehow to find Talena and escape, or die in the attempt.

I stopped a hurrying slave girl and inquired the way to the compound of Mintar, of the Merchant Caste, confident that he would have accompanied the horde. back to the heartland of Ar. The girl was not pleased to be delayed on her errand, but a slave on Gor does not wisely ignore the address of a free man. She spit the coins she carried in her mouth into her hand, and told me what I wanted to know. Few Gorean garments are deformed by pockets. An exception is the working aprons of artisans.

Soon, my heart beating quickly, my features concealed by the helmet I had taken from the warrior in the Voltai, I approached the compound of Mintar. At the entrance to the compound was a gigantic, temporary wire cage, a taro cot. I tossed a silver taro disk to the tarn keeper and ordered him to care for the bird, to groom and j feed it and see that it was ready on an instant's notice. His grumbling was silenced by an additional tarn disk.

I wandered about the outskirts of Mintar's compound, which was separated, like many of the merchant compounds, from the main camp by a tough fence of woven branches. Over the compound, as if it were a small city under siege, was stretched a set of interlaced taro wires. The compound of Mintar enclosed several acres of ground and was the largest merchant compound in the camp. At last I reached the section of the tharlarion corrals. I waited until one of the caravan guards passed. He didn't recognize me.

Glancing about to see that no one was watching, I lightly climbed the fence of woven branches and dropped down inside among a group of the broad tharlarions. I had carefully determined that the corral into which I dropped did not contain,the saddle lizards, the high tharlarions, those ridden by Kazrak and his tharlarion lancers. Such lizards are extremely short-tempered, as well as carnivorous, and I had no intention of attracting attention to myself by beating my way through them with a spear butt.

Their more dormant relatives, the broad tharlarions, barely lifted their snouts from the feed troughs. Shielded by the placid, heavy bodies, some as large as a bus, I worked my way toward the interior side of the corral.

My luck held, and I scaled the interior corral wall and dropped to the trampled path between the corral and the tents of Mintar's men. Normally, the merchant camp, like the better-organized military camps, not the melange that constituted the camp of Pa-Kur, is laid out geometrically, and, night after night, one puts up one's tent in the same relative position. Whereas the military camp is usually laid out in a set of concentric squares, reflecting the fourfold principle of military organization customary on Gor, the merchant camp is laid out in concentric circles, the guards' tents occupying the outermost ring, the craftsmen's, strap-masters', attendants', and slaves' quarters occupying inner rings, and the center being reserved for the merchant, his goods, and his bodyguard.

It was with this in mind that I had climbed the fence where I had. I was searching for Kazrak's tent, which lay in the outer ring near the tharlarion corrals. My calculations had been correct, and in a moment I had slipped inside the domed framework of his tent. I dropped the ring that I wore, with the crest of Cabot, to his sleeping mat.

For what seemed an interminable hour, I waited in the dark interior of the tent. At last the weary figure of Kazrak, helmet in hand, bent down to enter the tent. I waited, not speaking, in the shadows. He came through the opening, dropped his helmet on the sleeping mat, and began to unsling his sword. Still I would not speak, not while he controlled a weapon; unfortunately, the first thing a Gorean warrior is likely to do to the stranger in his tent is kill him, the second is to find out who he is. I saw the spark of Kazrak's fire-maker, and I felt the flush of friendship as I saw his features briefly outlined in the glow. He lit the small hanging tent lamp, a wick set in a copper bowl of tharlarion oil, and in its flickering light turned to the sleeping mat. No sooner had he done so than he fell to his knees on the mat and grasped the ring.

"By the Priest-Kings!" he cried.

I leaped across the tent and clapped my hands across his mouth. For a moment we struggled fiercely. "Kazrak!" I said. I took my hand from his mouth. He grasped me in his arms and crushed me to his chest, his eyes filled with tears. I shoved him away happily.

"I looked for you," he said. "For two days I rode down the banks of the Vosk. I would have cut you free."

"That's heresy," I laughed.

"Let it be heresy," he said. "I would have cut you free."

"We are together again," I said simply.

"I found the frame," Kazrak said, "half a pasang from the Vosk, broken. I thought you were dead."

The brave man wept, and I felt like weeping, too, for joy, because he was my friend. With affection I took him by the shoulders and shook him. I went to his locker near the mat and got out his Ka-la-na flask, taking a long draught myself and then shoving it into his hands. He drained the flask in one drink and wiped his hand across his beard, stained with the red juice of the fermented drink.

"We are together again," he said. "We are together again, Tarl of Bristol, my sword brother."

Kazrak and I sat in his tent, and I recounted my adventures to him, while he listened, shaking his head. "You are one of destiny and luck," he said, "raised by the Priest-Kings to do great deeds."

"Life is short," I said. "Let us speak of things we know."

"In a hundred generations, among the thousand chains of fate," said Kazrak, "there is but one strand like yours."

There was a sound at the entrance of Kazrak's tent. I darted back into the shadows.

It was one of the trusted strap-masters of Mintar, the man who guided the beasts that carried the merchant's palanquin.

Without looking around the tent, the man addressed himself directly to Kazrak.

"Will Kazrak and his guest, Tarl of Bristol, please accompany me to the tent of Mintar, of the Merchant Caste?" asked the man.

Kazrak and I were stunned, but arose to follow the man. It was now dark, and as I wore my helmet, there was no chance of the casual observer determining my identity. Before I left Kazrak's tent, I placed the ring of red metal, with the crest of Cabot, in my pouch. Hitherto I had worn the ring almost arrogantly, but now it seemed to me that discretion, to alter a saying, was the better part of pride.

Mintar's tent was enormous and domed, similar in shape to others in his camp; however, not only in size, but in splendor of appointment, it was a palace of silk. We passed through the guards at the entrance. In the center of the great tent, seated alone on cushions before a small fire, were two men, a game board between them. One was Mintar, of the Merchant Caste, his great bulk resting like a sack of meal on the cushions… The other man, a gigantic man, wore the robes of one of the Afflicted, but wore them as a king might. He sat cross-legged, his back straight and his head high, in the fashion of a warrior. Without needing to approach more closely, I knew the other man. It was Marlenus.

"Do not interrupt the game," commanded Marlenus.

Kazrak and I stood to one side.

Mintar was lost in thought, his small eyes fastened to the red and yellow squares of the board. Having recognized our presence, Marlenus, too, turned his attention to the game. A brief, crafty light flickered momentarily in. Mintar's small eyes, and his pudgy hand hovered, hesitating an instant, over one of the pieces of the hundred squared board, a centered Tarnsman. He touched it, committing himself to moving it. A brief exchange followed, like a chain reaction, neither man considering his moves for a moment, First Tarnsman took First Tarnsman, Second Spearman responded by neutralizing First Tarnsman, City neutralized Spearman, Assassin took City, Assassin fell to Second Tarnsman, Tarnsman to Spear. Slave, Spear Slave to Spear Slave.

Mintar relaxed on the cushions. "You have taken the City," he said, "but not the Home Stone." His eyes gleamed with pleasure. "I permitted that, in order that I might capture the Spear Slave. Let us now adjudicate the game. The Spear Slave gives me the point I need, a small point but decisive."

Marlenus smiled, rather grimly. "But position must figure in any adjudication," he said. Then, with an imperious gesture, Marlenus swept his Ubar into the file. opened by the movement of Mintar's capturing Spear Slave. It covered the Home Stone.

Mintar bowed his head in mock ceremony, a wry smile on his fat face, and with one short finger delicately tipped his own Ubar, causing it to fall.

"It is a weakness in my game," lamented Mintar. "I am ever too greedy for a profit, however small."

Marlenus looked at Kazrak and myself. "Mintar," he said, "teaches me patience. He is normally a master of defense."

Mintar smiled. "And Marlenus invariably of the attack."

"An absorbing game," said Marlenus, almost absentmindedly. "To some men this game is music and women. It can give them pleasure. It can help them forget. It is Ka-la-na wine, and the night on which such wine is drunk.

Neither Kazrak nor myself spoke.

"Look here," said Marlenus, reconstructing the board. "I have used the Assassin to take the City. Then, the Assassin is felled by a Tarnsman… an unorthodox, but interesting variation…»

"And the Tarnsman is felled by a Spear Slave," I observed.

"True," said Marlenus, shaking his head, "but thusly did I win."

"And Pa-Kur," I said, "is the Assassin."

"Yes," agreed Marlenus, "and Ar is the City."

"And I am the Tarasman?" I asked.

"Yes," said Marlenus.

"And who," I asked, "is the Spear Slave?"

"Does it matter?" asked Marlenus, sifting several of the Spear Slaves through his fingers, letting them drop, one by one, to the board. "Any of them will do."

"If the Assassin should take the City," I said, "the rule of the Initiates will be broken, and eventually the horde with its loot will scatter, leaving a garrison."

Mintar shifted comfortably, settling his great bulk more deeply into the cushions. "The young tarnsman plays the game well," he said.

"And," I went on, "when Pa-Kur falls, the garrison will be divided, and a revolution may take place."

"Led by a Ubar," said Marlenus, looking fixedly at the game piece in his hand. It was a Ubar. He smashed it down on the board, scattering the other pieces to the silken cushions. "By a Ubar!" he exclaimed.

"You are willing," I asked, "to turn the city over to, Pa-Kur — that his horde should swarm into the cylinders, that the city may be looted and burned, the people destroyed or enslaved?" I shuddered involuntarily at the thought of the uncontrolled hordes of Pa-Kur among the spires of Ar, butchering, pillaging, burning, raping or, as the Goreans will have it, washing the bridges in blood.

The eyes of Marlenus flashed. "No," he said "But Ar will fall. The Initiates can only mumble prayers to the Priest-Kings arrange the details of their meaningless, innumerable sacrifices. They crave political power, but can't understand it or manipulate it. They will never withstand a well-mounted siege. They will never keep the city."

"Can't you enter the city and take power?" I asked. "You could return the Home Stone. You could gather a following."

"Yes," said Marlenus. "I could return the Home Stone — and there are those who would follow me — but there are not enough, not enough. How many would rally to the banner of an outlaw? No, the power of the Initiates must first be broken."

"Do you have a way into the city?" I asked.

Marlenus looked at me narrowly. "Perhaps," he said.

"Then I have a counter plan," I said. "Strike for the Home Stones of those cities tributary to Ar — they are kept on the Central Cylinder. If you seize them, you can divide Pa-Kur's horde, give the Home Stones to the contingents of the tributary cities, provided they withdraw their forces. If they do not, destroy the Stones."

"The soldiers of the Twelve Tributary Cities," he said, "want loot, vengeance, the women of Ar, not just their Stones."

"Perhaps some of them fight for their freedom for the right to keep their own Home Stone," I said. "Surely not all of Pa-Kur's horde are adventurers, mercenaries." Noting the Ubar's interest, I went on. "Besides, few of the soldiers of Gor, barbarians though they might be, would risk the destruction of their city's Home Stone — the luck of their birthplace."

"But," said Marlenus, frowning, "if the siege is lifted, the Initiates will be left in power."

"And Marlenus will not resume the throne of Ar," I said "But the city will be safe." I looked at Marlenus, testing the man. "What is it, Ubar, that you hold dearest your city or your title? Do you seek the welfare of Ar or your private glory?"

Marlenus leaped to his feet, hurling the yellow robes of the Afflicted from him, drawing his blade from its sheath with a metallic flash. "A Ubar," he cried, "answers such a question only with his sword! My weapon, too, had flashed from its sheath almost simultaneously. We faced each other for a long, terrible moment; then Marlenus threw back his head and laughed his great lion laugh, slamming his sword back into its sheath. "Your plan is a good one," he said "My men and I will enter the city tonight."

"And I shall go with you," I said.

"No," said Marlenus. "The men of Ar need no help from a warrior of Ko-ro-ba."

"Perhaps," suggested Mintar, "the young tarnsman might attend to the matter of Talena, daughter of Marlenus."

"Where is she?" I demanded.

"We are not certain," said Mintar. "But it is presumed that she is kept in the tents of Pa-Kur."

For the first time Kazrak spoke. "On the day that Ar falls, she will wed Pa-Kur and rule beside him. He hopes this will encourage the survivors of Ar to accept him as their rightful Ubar. He will proclaim himself their liberator, their deliverer from the despotism of the Initiates, the restorer of the old order, the glory of the empire."

Mintar was idly arranging the pieces on the game board, first in one pattern and then in another. "In large matters, as the pieces are now set," he said, "the girl is unimportant, but only the Priest-Kings can foresee all possible variations. It might be well to remove the girl from the board." So saying, he picked a piece, the Ubar's Consort, or Ubara, from the board and dropped it into the game box.

Marlenus stared down at the board, his fists clenched "Yes," he said, "she must be removed from the board, but not simply for reasons of strategy. She has dishonored. me." He scowled at me. "She has been alone with a warrior — she has submitted herself — she has even pledged to sit at the side of an assassin."

"She has not dishonored you," I said.

"She submitted herself," said Marlenus.

"Only to save her life," I said.

"And rumor has it," said Mintar, not looking up from the board, "that she pledged herself to Pa-Kur only that some tarnsman she loved might be given a small chance of life.»

"She would have brought a bride price of a thousand tarns," said Marlenus bitterly, "and now she is of less value than a trained slave girl."

"She is your daughter," I said, my temper rising.

"If she were here now," said Marlenus, "I would strangle her."

"And I would kill you," I said.

"Well, then," said Marlenus, smiling, "perhaps I would only beat her and throw her naked to my tarnsmen."

"And I would kill you," I repeated.

"Indeed," said Marlenus, looking at me narrowly, "one of us would slay the other."

"Have you no love for her?" I asked.

Marlenus seemed momentarily puzzled. "I am a Ubar," he said. He drew the robes of the Afflicted once more around his gigantic frame and picked up a gnarled staff he carried. He dropped the hood of the yellow robe about his face, ready to go, then turned to me once more. With the staff he poked me good-naturedly in the chest. "May the Priest-Kings favor you," he said, and, inside the folds of the hood, I knew he was chuckling.

Marlenus left the tent, seemingly one of the Afflicted, a bent wreck of humanity pathetically scratching at the earth in front of him with the staff.

Mintar looked up, and he, too, seemed pleased. "You are the only man who has ever escaped the tarn death," he said, something of wonder in his voice. "Perhaps it is true, as they say, that you are that warrior brought every thousand years to Gor — brought by the Priest-Kings to change a world."

"How did you know I would come to the camp?" I asked.

"Because of the girl," said Mintar. "And it was logical, was it not, to expect you to enlist the aid of your Kazrak, your sword brother?"

"Yes," I said.

Mintar reached into the pouch at his waist and drew forth a golden tarn disk, of double weight. He threw it to Kazrak.

Kazrak caught it.

"I understand you are leaving my service," said Mintar.

"I must," said Kazrak.

"Of course," said Mintar.

"Where are the tents of Pa-Kur?" I asked.

"On the highest ground in camp," said Mintar, "near the second ditch.and across from the great gate of Ar. You will see the black banner of the Caste of Assassins."

"Thank you," I said. "Though you are of the Merchant Caste, you are a brave man."

"A merchant may be as brave as a warrior, young Tarnsman," smiled Mintar. Then he seemed somewhat embarrassed. "Let us look at it this way. Suppose Marlenus regains Ar — will Mintar not receive the monopolies he wishes?"

"Yes," I said, "but Pa-Kur will guarantee those monopolies as freely as Marlenus."

"Even more freely," corrected Mintar, turning his attention again to the board, "but, you see, Pa-Kur does not play the game."