Chapter 3
THE SPEAR GAMBLING

One, the Tuchuk, I might have slain with a cast of the heavy Gorean war spear; the others would have had free play with their lances. I might have thrown myself to the ground as the larl hunters from Ar, once their weapon is cast, covering myself with the shield; but then I would have been beneath the clawed paws of four squealing, snorting kaiila, while the riders jabbed at me with lances, off my feet, helpless.

So gambling all on the respect of the Wagon Peoples for the courage of men, I made no move to defend myself but, heart pounding, blood racing, yet no sign visible of agitation on my face, without a quiver of a muscle or tendon betraying me, I stood calmly erect.

On my face there was only disdain.

At the last instant, the lances of four riders but a hand’s breadth from my body, the enraged, thundering kaiila, hissing and squealing, at a touch of the control straps, arrested their fierce charge, stopping themselves, tearing into the deep turf with suddenly emergent claws. Not a rider was thrown or seemed for an instant off balance. The children of the Wagon Peoples are taught the saddle of the kaiila before they can walk.

"Aieee" cried the warrior of the Kataii.

He and the others turned their mounts and backed away a handful of yards, regarding me.

I had not moved.

"My name is Tarl Cabot," I said. "I come in peace.

The four riders exchanged glances and then, at a sign from the heavy Tuchuk, rode a bit away from me.

I could not make out what they were saying, but an argument of some sort was in progress.

I leaned on my spear and yawned, looking away toward the bosk herds.

My blood was racing. I knew that had I moved, or shown fear, or attempted to flee, I would now be dead. I could have fought. I might perhaps then have been victorious but the probabilities were extremely slim. Even had I slain two of them the others might have withdrawn and with their arrows or bolas brought me to the ground. More importantly, I did not wish to introduce myself to these people as an enemy. I wished, as I had said, to come in peace.

At last the Tuchuk detached himself from the other three warriors and pranced his kaiila to within a dozen yards of me.

"You are a stranger," he said.

"I come in peace to the Wagon Peoples," I said.

"You wear no insignia on your shield," he said. "You are outlaw."

I did not respond. I was entitled to wear the marks of the city of Ko-ro-ba, the Towers of the Morning, but I had not done so. Once, long, long ago, Ko-ro-ba and Ar had turned the invasion of the united Wagon Peoples from the north, and the memories of these things, stinging still in the honest songs of camp skalds, would rankle in the craws of such fierce, proud peoples. I did not wish to present myself to them as an enemy.

"What was your city?" he demanded.

But to such a question, as a warrior of Ko-ro-ba, I could not but respond.

"I am of Ko-ro-ba," I said. "You have heard of her."

The Tuchuk’s face tightened. Then he grinned. "I have heard sing of Ko-ro-ba," he said.

I did not reply to him.

He turned to his fellows. "A Koroban!" he cried.

The men moved on their mounts, restlessly, eagerly said something to one another.

"We turned you back," I said.

"What is your business with the Wagon Peoples?" demanded the Tuchuk.

Here I paused. What could I tell him? Surely here, in this matter, I must bide my time.

"You see there is no insignia on my shield or tunic," I said.

He nodded. "You are a fool," he said, "to flee to the Wagon Peoples."

I had now led him to believe that I was indeed an outlaw, a fugitive.

He threw back his head and laughed. He slapped his thigh. "A Koroban! And he flies to the Wagon Peoples!" Tears of mirth ran from the sides of his eyes. "You are a fool!" he said.

"Let us fight," I suggested.

Angrily the Tuchuk pulled back on the reins of the kaiila, causing it to rear, snarling, pawing at the sky. "And willingly would I do so, Koroban sleen," he spit out. "Pray thou to Priest-Kings that the lance does not fall to me!"

I did not understand this.

He turned his kaiila and in a bound or two swung it about in the midst of his fellows.

Then the Kassar approached me.

"Koroban," said he, "did you not fear our lances?"

"I did," I said.

"But you did not show your fear," said he.

I shrugged.

"Yet," said he, "you tell me you feared." There was wonder on his face.

I looked away.

"That," said the rider, "speaks to me of courage."

We studied each other for a moment, sizing one another up. Then he said, "Though you are a dweller of cities—a vermin of the walls—I think you are not unworthy—and thus I pray the lance will fall to me."

He turned his mount back to his fellows.

They conferred again for a moment and then the warrior of the Kataii approached, a lithe, strong proud man, one in whose eyes I could read that he had never lost his saddle, nor turned from a foe.

His hand was light on the yellow bow, strung taut. But no arrow was set to the string.

"Where are your men?" he asked.

"I am alone," I said.

The warrior stood in the stirrups, shading his eyes.

"Why have you come to spy?" he asked.

"I am not a spy," I said.

"You are hired by the Turians," he said.

"No," I responded.

"You are a stranger," he said.

"I come in peace," I said.

"Have you heard," he asked, "that the Wagon Peoples slay strangers?"

"Yes," I said, "I have heard that."

"It is true," he said, and turned his mount back to his fellows.

Last to approach me was the warrior of the Paravaci, with his hood and cape of white fur, and the glistening broad necklace of precious stones encircling his throat.

He pointed to the necklace. "It is beautiful, is it not?" he asked.

"Yes," I said.

"It will buy ten bosks," said he, "twenty wagons covered with golden cloth, a hundred she-slaves from Turia."

I looked away.

"Do you not covet the stones," he prodded, "these riches?"

"No," I said.

Anger crossed his face. "You may have them," he said.

"What must I do?" I asked.

"Slay me!" he laughed.

I looked at him steadily. "They are probably false stones," I said, "amber droplets, the pearls of the Vosk sorp, the polished shell of the Tamber clam, glass coloured and cut in Ar for trade with ignorant southern peoples."

The face of the Paravaci, rich with its terrible furrowed scars, contorted with rage.

He tore the necklace from his throat and flung it to my feet.

"Regard the worth of those stones!" he cried. I fished the necklace from the dust with the point of my sword, it in the sun. It hung like a belt of light, sparkling with a spectrum of riches hundred merchants.

"Excellent," I admitted, handing it back to him on the tip of the spear.

Angrily he wound it about the pommel of the saddle.

"But I am of the Caste of Warriors," I said, "of a high city and we do not stain our spears for the stones of men—not even such stones as these."

The Paravaci was speechless.

"You dare to tempt me," I said, feigning anger, "as if I were of the Caste of Assassins or a common thief with his dagger in the night." I frowned at him. "Beware," I warned, "lest I take your words as insult."

The Paravaci, in his cape and hood of white fur, with the priceless necklace wrapped about the pommel of his saddle, sat stiff, not moving, utterly enraged. Then, furiously, the scars wild in his face, he sprang up in the stirrups and lifted both hands to the sky. "Spirit of the Sky," he cried, "let the lance fall to me—to me!" Then abruptly, furious, he wheeled the kaiila and joined the others, whence he turned to regard me.

As I watched, the Tuchuk took his long, slender lance and thrust it into the ground, point upward. Then, slowly, the four riders began to walk their mounts about the lance, watching it, right hands free to seize it should it begin to fall.

The wind seemed to rise.

In their way I knew they were honouring me, that they had respected my stand in the matter of the charging lances, that now they were gambling to see who would fight me, to whose weapons my blood must flow, beneath the paws of whose kaiila I must fall bloodied to the earth.

I watched the lance tremble in the shaking earth, and saw the intentness of the riders as they watched its Lightest movement. It would soon fall.

I could now see the herds quite clearly, making out individual animals, the shaggy humps moving through the dust, see the sun of the late afternoon glinting off thousands of horns. Here and there I saw riders, darting about, all mounted on the swift, graceful kaiila. The sun reflected from the horns in the veil of dust that hung over the herds was quite beautiful.

The lance had not yet fallen.

Soon the animals would be turned in on themselves, to mill together in knots, until they were stopped by the shaggy walls of their own kind, to stand and graze until the morning. The wagons would, of course, follow the herds. The herd forms both vanguard and rampart for the advance of the wagons. The wagons are said to be countless, the animals without number. Both of these claims are, of course, mistaken, and the Ubars of the Wagon Peoples know well each wagon and the number of branded beasts in the various herds; each herd is, incidentally, composed of several smaller herds, each watched over by its own riders. The bellowing seemed now to come from the sky itself, like thunder, or from the horizon, like the breaking of an ocean into surf on the rocks of the shore. It was like a sea or a vast natural phenomenon slowly approaching. Such indeed, I suppose, it was. Now, also, for the first time, I could clearly smell the herd, a rich, vast, fresh, musky, pervasive odour, compounded of trampled grass and torn earth, of the dung, urine and sweat of perhaps more than a million beasts. The magnificent vitality of that smell, so offensive to some, astonished and thrilled me; it spoke to me of the insurgence and the swell of life itself, ebullient, raw, overflowing, unconquerable, primitive, shuffling, smelling, basic, animal, stamping, snorting, moving, an avalanche of tissue and blood and splendour, a glorious, insistent, invincible cataract of breathing and walking and seeing and feeling on the sweet, flowing, windswept mothering earth. And it was in that instant that I sensed what the bosk might mean to the Wagon Peoples.

"Ho!" I heard, and spun to see the black lance fall and scarcely had it moved but it was seized in the fist of the scarred Tuchuk warrior.