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.
Chapter Eighteen
I brought the tarn down, to the field of training, followed by Tajima and Pertinax, and Ichiro, my first, or lead, signalman.
Shortly afterward Torgus, with his bannerman and guard, alit, and Lysander, too, with his bannerman and first twenty.
My major officers were then with me.
We had perhaps a century of men either on the ground or in the air, in the vicinity. Several were doubtless still in pursuit of fugitives.
“We are victorious!” cried Torgus, pleased, dismounted, holding the reins of his tarn.
“Swords still cross,” I informed him, looking about.
Smoke rolled upward from the housing area, from beyond the narrow track which led to the Plaza of Training.
“Let them come to us!” laughed Torgus, sweeping an arm back, indicating the crowded plaza.
Tarns screamed. Dust swirled, raised by war and the beating wings of tarns, the gigantic, monstrous saddle birds of Gor. Here and there my fellows were still at their work. Enemies spun about, encircled, fenced by lances, thence to be pierced by arrows. I saw an Anangan dart lodge itself in a fellow’s throat, who tried to pull it free, and, blood bursting from the neck, he sprawled into the dust, the vessel of the artery exposed, as it had caught behind the point of the dart, which point is broad, and barbed. In two or three places men fought, interestingly, with blades. I saw one fellow’s spine severed as he tried to mount the saddle ladder of an unguarded tarn. There was shouting. Some tarns were being led away by my men, to be secured in our cots.
“They will,” said Tajima.
As the tarns of the dismounted enemy were on the plaza of training, and we now held that ground, they had no access to the tarns without challenging us. Some were now coming down the track which led from the housing area to the training area, burdened with loot, some leading bound, leashed, female slaves. Muchly were they then dismayed to realize the training area was occupied. Several understood their peril and abandoned their loot, and slaves, and, drawing their weapons, hurried toward the waiting birds. Here, however, my men, now well outnumbering their foe, withdrew before them, if on foot, only to circle them, suddenly, like pack sleen, and fire arrows into backs or sides, whatever area might be clear of the shield. Some had recourse to the lances, to fend them back, while others used their bows or Anangan darts. It was much like the tactics of the air, but employed upon the ground. Engage, if possible, only when it is to your advantage, I had cautioned them. When charged they melted away only to reform again in a circle of death, where the turning warrior, confused and frightened, could defend himself on only one side. Few of our fellows could have stood up singly to such an enemy but, like harrying pack sleen, could easily deal severally with him. Too, some of our fellows, still on tarnback, their tarns on the ground, used their arrows to advantage. If approached, they merely pulled on the one-strap and hovered in the air, to fire further. Some other strikes were made from the air with the temwood lances.
“Cowards! Cowards!” cried one of the warriors, turning about, wildly. But then he fell, pierced by a dozen arrows.
He who would throw himself into the jaws of a larl may not be a coward, but he is surely a fool.
Some of the enemy then turned about, to flee back to the shelter of the trees and, momentarily, the housing area. Few reached the track, even backing away. Others fled into the forest, beyond the wands. I heard the roar of larls, and screams, from north of the track.
I would keep men on the field, for I was not sure of the number of enemies that might be left in the area.
There were many bodies about, the debris of war, distributed in accord with a fray’s whims. Few were in our gray.
The foe, it seemed, had not fared well, neither in the sky nor, as far as I could determine, on the ground.
“There are no prisoners?” I asked a fellow, one of the Pani.
“No,” he said.
I thought no more of this at the time.
I called to my side Tajima and Pertinax, and some dozen or so mercenaries, who well knew the sword.
“I suspect there is work to be done,” I said.
“I think so,” said Tajima.
“You are learning the blade,” I said to Pertinax. “Are you ready to use it?”
“Yes,” he said.
“Truly?” I asked, regarding him closely.
“I think so,” he said.
“Bucklers and blades,” I said to the mercenaries.
I secured my own buckler from the saddle.
“You, too, buckler and blade,” I said to Tajima and Pertinax. It is true the blade may be used for both offense and defense, but I would not trust it against a flighted quarrel.
“Nodachi,” said Tajima, “could deflect a quarrel with the blade of even a companion sword.”
