Swordsmen of Gor

“Luckily,” said another, “much of the walling of Ar had been earlier dismantled by her own citizens, or we might have been unable to reach the fields, the marshes, the Viktel Aria.”

“What of Myron,” I asked, “his troops?”

“He was drunk in his tent,” said another, bitterly.

“Many of his troops,” said another, “those of the mercenary captains, given the emptying of Ar, and the lessening of loot, had deserted.”

“There were regulars, surely,” I said.

“Too few,” said another man. “It had been thought that Ar was pacified, that she required little attention, that the propaganda of Tyros and Cos had done its work, weakening and confusing Ar, dividing her and turning her against herself. Many troops had been recalled to the island ubarates themselves, others to the Cosian principalities on the Vosk.”

“They did engage,” said another man, “but not as they would have preferred. They had little time to form, as enraged thousands, many now armed with captured weapons, rushed forth from the city to deal with them.”

Commonly a large Gorean military camp is square, or rectangular. It is carefully laid out, and is usually severally gated, which allows for the issuance of forces from the interior in a variety of manners. Too, it is ditched, and palisaded, with lookout towers at the corners of the palisade. Watches are routinely maintained, and not unoften patrols reconnoiter the locality. I recalled, however, from when I had been last in Ar, that many of these provisions had not been supplied by the polemarkos. Though Myron had had his weaknesses, for paga, and, occasionally, for a slave, he was not a poor officer. The nonfortifying of the camp had been deliberate, a part of the charade that Tyros, Cos, and their allies, had come to Ar not as conquerors but as liberators.

“We soon heard,” said one of the men on the beach, “that a banner had been unfurled.”

“And that Marlenus had returned,” said another.

“That broke the spirit of hundreds,” said another.

It is interesting, I thought, what may be the effect of will, and a given leader, on a course of events, how such things, will and a given leader, as though by magic, can generate storms, can shake the earth, may turn even urts into larls, jards to tarns.

How does the leader know this will occur, I wondered. Or does he know?

“Hundreds escaped with their lives,” said a man.

“And thousands did not,” said another.

“The streets of Ar ran with blood,” said a fellow. “Traitors, hundreds, gathered together from the proscription lists, were taken outside the city and impaled.”

“The great road, the Viktel Aria, was lined, on both sides, for pasangs, with the bound, squirming, whimpering bodies,” said a man.

I nodded.

The vengeance of a Marlenus, I knew, would be a frightful thing.

“Many bodies were hurled, like beasts, into the marshes, for tharlarion,” said a fellow.

“Or into carnariums,” said another.

These were deep pits outside the city, used for the disposal of filth, of garbage, and such. Occasionally a new one was dug, and an old one covered over. Occasionally one was opened, even generations after its closure, that it might be reused, and the lingering stench might still overcome even a strong man. Usually these pits were tended by male slaves, with shovels, with the lower parts of their faces wrapped in scarves.

“The walls of Ar,” I said, “are doubtless being rebuilt.”

I must not make my serious concerns too obvious.

“With soaring hearts and singing,” said a fellow.

“And the flute girls who so tormented and mocked the earlier dismantlers of the walls?” I asked.

“Collared, naked, sweating, under the lash,” said a fellow, “they now struggle to bear stones to the builders.”

“They will be distributed later, as officers deem fit,” said another.

“Excellent,” I said.

I tried to keep my voice steady.

“And what of Talena?” I asked.

“A great price has been put upon her head,” said a fellow.

“Ten thousand tarns of gold,” said a fellow.

“Tarn disks of double weight,” said another.

“Then she escaped the city,” I said. “She has not been captured.”

“You seem pleased,” said a man.

“He is a bounty hunter,” laughed a fellow.

“You will not have much of a chance to get your capture rope on her,” said another.

“Every bounty hunter on Gor will seek her,” said another.

“Where would she go? How would she escape capture?” asked another. “I wager she is already captured, and her hunter is pondering how he might get her safely to Ar.”

“He may be negotiating for a better price, even now,” said another.

“Perhaps she was concealed, and sped to Cos,” I said. “Surely they owe her much. She did them much service.”

“Ar has risen,” said a man. “If she is in Cos, Lurius will deliver her to Marlenus as a peace offering, as a sign of reconciliation and proposed amity.”

“I do not think she is in Cos,” said a fellow, “or Tyros, either.”

“Where then?” said a man.

“I know not,” he replied.

“Where would she go?” asked the fellow who had spoken earlier. “Who would shelter her? She cannot just enter another city, even a village.”

I realized the fellow’s point. There would be the matter of clan, of caste, of identity, of Home Stone. The veils of anonymity are not easily donned in a closely-knit society.

“Surely she might bribe discretion,” said a man.

“And what bribe might she, unthroned and sought, a fugitive, offer to better the bounty of ten thousand tarn disks?” asked a fellow.

“Of double weight!” laughed another.

How much could the fleeing Ubara have taken with her, I wondered, given the suddenness of the turn of events, the surprise of the rising. A handful of economic resources, seized in a moment of panic-stricken flight, would not be likely to last long.

“Might she not have loyal retainers?” I asked. “Men who would die for her?”

“None would stand by her,” said a fellow, “once she no longer stood within the palisade of foreign spears.”

“She was despised,” said another, “even by those welcomed within the chambers of her treason.”

Too, I thought, how foolish to look for loyalty amongst the disloyal, to hope for honor from those who were without honor. Would the ultimate motivation of the conspirator not be the sanctity of his own skin? Frightened urts will turn on their fellows and lacerate them. They will kill one another for a drop of blood. Betrayal is a not infrequent behavior, and it is one to which one may easily become habituated.

“It is only a matter of time,” said a fellow, “until she is thrown, naked and in chains, to the tiles at the foot of the Ubar’s throne.”

“Woe to Talena,” said a fellow.

“She is a traitress to her Home Stone,” said a man.

“True,” said the fellow. “Let it then be done to her according to the ways of Gor.”

“And the mercy of Marlenus,” said another.

At this there was a coursing of rude, cruel, unfeeling mirth amongst the rough fellows on the beach.

And these fellows, I thought, were the very fellows from whom she might have hoped succor, for it had been blades such as theirs which had placed her upon, and protected her upon, the usurped throne of Ar.

But they were Gorean, and she was a female, and one who had betrayed her Home Stone. I did not doubt but