Chapter 21
KAMCHAK ENTERS TURIA

 

I had now been in the city of Turia some four days, having returned on foot in the guise of a peddler of small jewels. I had left the tarn with the wagons. I had spent my last tarn disk to buy a couple of handfuls of tiny stones, many of them of little or no value; yet their weight in my pouch gave me some pretext for being in the city.

I had found Kamchak, as I had been told I would, at the wagon of Kutaituchik, which, drawn up on its hill near the standard of the four bosk horns, had been heaped with what wood was at hand and filled with dry grass. The whole was then drenched in fragrant oils, and that dawn of the retreat, Kamchak, by his own hand, hurled the torch into the wagon.

Somewhere in the wagon, fixed in a sitting position, weapons at hand, was Kutaituchik, who had been Kamchak’s friend, and who had been called Ubar of the Tuchuks. The smoke of the wagon must easily have been seen from the distant walls of Turia. ~

Kamchak had not spoken but sat on his kaiila, his face dark with resolve. He was terrible to look upon and I, though his friend, did not dare to speak to him. I had not returned to the wagon I had shared with him, but had come immediately to the wagon of Kutaituchik, where I had been informed he was to be found.

Clustered about the hill, in ranks, on their kaiila, black lances in the stirrup, were several of the Tuchuk Hundreds.

Angrily they watched the wagon burn.

I wondered that such men as Kamchak and these others would so willingly, abandon the siege of Turia.

At last when the wagon had burned and the wind moved about the blackened beams and scattered ashes across the green prairie, Kamchak raised his right hand. "Let the standard be moved," he cried.

I observed a special wagon, drawn by a dozen bosk, being pulled up the hill, into which the standard, when uprooted, would be set. In a few minutes the great pole of the standard had been mounted on the wagon and was descending the hill, leaving on the summit the burned wood and the black ashes that had been the wagon of Kutaituchik, surrendering them now to the wind and the rain, to time and the snows to come, and to the green grass of the prairie.

"Turn the wagons!" called Kamchak.

Slowly, wagon by wagon, the long columns of the Tuchuk retreat were formed, each wagon in its column, each column in its place, and, covering pasangs of prairie, the march front Turia had begun.

Far beyond the wagons I could see the herds of bosk, and the dust from their hoofs stained the horizon.

Kamchak rose in his stirrups. "The Tuchuks ride from Turia!" he cried.

Rank by rank the warriors on the kaiila, dour, angry, silent, turned their mounts away from the city and slowly went to find their wagons, save for the Hundreds that would flank the withdrawal and form its rear guard.

Kamchak rode his kaiila up the hill until he stood, that cold dawn, at the edge of the burned wood and ashes of Kutaituchik’s wagon. He stayed there for some time, and then turned his mount away, and came slowly down the hill.

Seeing me, he stopped. "I am pleased to see you live," he said.

I dropped my head, acknowledging the bond he had acknowledged. My heart felt grateful to the stern, fierce warrior, though he had been in the past days harsh and strange, half drunk with hatred for Turia. I did not know if the Kamchak I had known would ever live again. I feared that part of him perhaps that part I had loved best had died the night of the raid, when he had entered the wagon of Kutaituchik. ~

Standing at his stirrup I looked up. "Will you leave like this?" I asked. "Is it enough?"

He looked at me, but I could read no expression on his face. "The Tuchuks ride from Turia," he said. He then rode away, leaving me standing on the hill.

Somewhat to my surprise I had no difficulty the next morning, after the withdrawal of the wagons, in entering the city. Before leaving the wagons I had joined them briefly on their march, long enough to purchase my peddler’s disguise and the pound or so of stones which was to complete it. I purchased these things from the man from whom Kamchak had, on a happier afternoon, obtained a new saddle and set of quivas. I had seen many things in the man’s wagon and I had gathered, correctly it seems, that he was himself a peddler of sorts. I then, on foot, following for a time the tracks of the departing wagons, then departing from them, returned to the vicinity of Turia. I spent the night on the prairie and then, on what would have been the second day of the retreat, entered the city at the eighth hour. My hair was concealed in the hood of a thin, ankle-length rep-cloth garment, a dirty white through which ran flecks of golden thread, a fit garment, in my opinion, for an insignificant merchant. Beneath my garment, concealed, I carried sword and quiva.

I was hardly questioned by guards at the gates of Turia, for the city is a commercial oasis in the plains and during a year hundreds of caravans, not to mention thousands of small merchants, on foot or with a single tharlarion wagon, enter her gates. To my great surprise the gates of Turia stood open after the withdrawal of the wagons and the lifting of the siege. Peasants streamed through them returning to their fields and also hundreds of townsfolk for an outing, some of them to walk even as far as the remains of the old Tuchuk camp, hunting for souvenirs. As I entered I regarded the lofty double gates, and wondered how long it would take to close them.

As I hobbled through the city of Turia, one eye half shut, staring at the street as though I hoped to find a lost copper tarn disk among the stones, I made my way toward the compound of Saphrar of Turia. I was jostled in the crowds, and twice nearly knocked down in the guard of Phanius Turmus, Ubar of Turia.

I was vaguely conscious, from time to time, that I might be followed. I dismissed this possibility, however, for, glancing about, I could find no one I might fear. The only person I saw more than once was a slip of a girl in Robes of Concealment and veil, a market basket on her arm, who the second time passed me, not noticing me. I breathed a sigh of relief. It is a nerve-wracking business, the negotiation of an enemy city, knowing that discovery might bring torture or sudden death, at best perhaps an Impalement by sundown on the city’s walls, a warning to any other who might be similarly tempted to transgress the hospitality of a Gorean city.

I came to the ring of flat, cleared ground, some hundred feet or so wide, which separates the walled compound of buildings which constitutes the House of Saphrar of Turia from all the surrounding structures. I soon learned, to my irritation, that one could not approach the high compound wall more closely than ten spear lengths.

"Get away you!" cried a guard from the wall, with a crossbow. "There is no loitering here"

"But master!" I cried. "I have gems and jewels to show the noble Saphrar!"

"Approach then the nearer gate!" he called. "And state your business."

I found a rather small gate in the wall, heavily barred, and begged admittance to show my wares to Saphrar. I hoped to be ushered into his presence and then, on the threat of slaying him, secure the golden sphere and a tarn for escape.

To my chagrin I was not admitted into the compound, but my pitiful stock of almost worthless stones was examined outside the gate by a steward in the company of two armed warriors. It took him only a few moments to discover the value of the stones and, when he did, with a cry of disgust, he hurled them away from the gate into the dust, and the two warriors, while I pretended fright and pain, belaboured me with the hilts of their weapons. "Be gone, Fool!" they snarled.

I hobbled after the stones, and fell to my knees in the dust, scrabbling after them, moaning and crying aloud.

I heard the guards laugh.

I had just picked up the last stone and tucked it back in my pouch and was about to rise from my knees when I found myself staring at the high, heavy sandals, almost boots, of a warrior.

"Mercy, Master," I whined.

"Why are you carrying a sword beneath your robe?" he asked.

I knew the voice. It was that of Kamras of Turia, Champion of the City, whom Kamchak had so sorely bested in the games of Love War.

I lunged forward seizing him by the legs and upended him in the- dust and then leaped to my feet and ran, the hood flying off behind me.

I heard him cry. "Stop that man! Stop him! I know him! He is Tarl Cabot of Ko-ro-ba! Stop him!"

I stumbled in the long robe of the merchant and cursed and leaped up and ran again. The bolt of a crossbow splattered into a brick wall on my right, gouging a cupful of masonry loose in chips and dust.

I darted down a narrow street. I could hear someone, probably Kamras, and then one or two others running after me. Then I heard a girl cry out, and scream, and two men curse. I glanced behind me to see that the girl who carried the market basket had inadvertently fallen in front of the warriors. She was crying angrily at them and waving her broken basket. They pushed her rudely to one side and - hurried on. By that time I had rounded a corner and leaped to a window, pulled myself up to the next window, and hauled myself up again and onto the flat roof of a shop. I heard the running feet of the two warriors, and then of six more men, pass in the street below. Then some children, screaming, ran after the soldiers. I heard some speculative conversation in the street below, between two or three passers-by, then it seemed quiet.

I lay there scarcely daring to breathe. The sun on the flat roof was hot. I counted five Gorean Ehn, or minutes. Then I decided I had better move across the roofs in the opposite direction, find a sheltered roof, stay there until nightfall and then perhaps try to leave the city. I might go after the wagons, which would be moving slowly, obtain the tarn I had left with them, and then return on tarnback to Saphrar’s house. It would be extremely dangerous, of course, to leave the city in the near future. Certainly word would be at the gates to watch for me. I had entered Turia easily. I did not expect I would leave as easily as I had entered. But how could I stay in the city until vigilance at the gates might be relaxed, perhaps three or four days from now? Every guardsman in Turia would be on the lookout for Tarl Cabot, who unfortunately, was not difficult to recognize.

About this time I heard someone coming along the street whistling a tune. I had heard it. Then I realized that I had heard it among the wagons of the Tuchuks. It was a Tuchuk tune, a wagon tune, sometimes sung by the girls with the bosk sticks.

I picked up the melody and whistled a few bars, and then the person below joined me and we finished the turn.

Cautiously I poked my head over the edge of the roof. The street was deserted save for a girl, who was standing below, looking up toward the roof. She was dressed in veil and Robes of Concealment. It was she whom I had seen before, when I had thought I might be followed. It was she who had inadvertently detained my pursuers. She carried a broken market basket.

"You make a very poor spy, Tarl Cabot," she said.

"Dina of Turia!" I cried.

I stayed four days in the rooms above the shop of Dina of Turia. There I dyed my hair black and exchanged the robes of the merchant for the yellow and brown tunic of the Bakers, to which caste her father and two brothers had belonged.

Downstairs the wooden screens that had separated the shop from the street had been splintered apart; the counter had been broken and the ovens ruined, their oval domes shattered, their iron doors twisted from their hinges; even the top stones on tile two grain mills had been thrown to the floor and broken.

At one time, I gathered from Dina, her father’s shop had been the most famed of the baking shops of Turia, most of which are owned by Saphrar of Turia, whose interests range widely, though operated naturally, as Gorean custom would require, by members of the Caste of Bakers. Her father had refused to sell the shop to Saphrar’s agents, and take his employment under the merchant. Shortly thereafter some seven or eight ruffians, armed with clubs and iron ban, had attacked the shop, destroying its equipment. In attempting to defend against this attack both her father and her two older brothers had been beaten to death. Her mother had died shortly thereafter of shock. Dina had lived for a time on the savings of the family, but had then taken them, sewn in the lining of her roles, and purchased a place on a caravan wagon bound for Ar, which caravan had been ambushed by Kassars, in which raid she herself, of course, had fallen into their hands.

"Would you not like to hire men and reopen the shop?" I asked.

"I have no money," she said.

"I have very little," I said, taking the pouch and spilling the stones in a glittering if not very valuable heap on the small table in her central room.

She laughed and poked through them with her fingers. "I learned something of jewels," she said, "in the wagons of Albrecht and Kamchak and there is scarcely a silver tarn disk’s worth here."

"I paid a golden tarn disk for them," I asserted.

"But to a Tuchuk" she said.

"Yes," I admitted.

"My dear Tarl Cabot," she said, "my sweet dear Tarl Cabot." Then she looked at me and her eyes saddened.

"But," said she, "even had I the money to reopen the shop it would mean only that the men of Saphrar would come again."

I was silent. I supposed what she said was true.

"Is there enough there to buy passage to Ar?" I asked.

"No," she said. "But I would prefer in any case to remain in Turia it is my home."

"How do you live?" I asked.

"I shop for wealthy women," said she, "for pastries and tarts and cakes things they will not trust their female slaves to buy."

In answer to her questions I told her the reason for which I had entered the city to steal an object of value from Saphrar of Turia, which he himself had stolen from the Tuchuks. This pleased her, as I guessed anything would which was contrary to the interests of the Turian merchant, for whom she entertained the greatest hatred.

"Is this truly all you travel" she asked, pointing at the pile of stones.

"Yes," I said.

"Poor warrior," said she, her eyes smiling over the veil, "you do not even have enough to pay for the use of a skilled slave girl."

"That is true," I admitted.

Slit laughed anti with an easy motion dropped the veil from her face and shook her head, freeing her hair. She held out her hands. "I am only a poor free woman," said she, "but might I not do?"

I took her hands and drew her to me, and into my arms.

"You are very beautiful, Dina of Turia," I said to her.

For four days I remained with the girl, and each day, once at noon and once in the evening, we would stroll by one or more of the gates of Turia, to see if the guards might now be less vigilant than they had been the time before. To my disappointment, they continued to check every outgoing person and wagon with great care, demanding proof of identity and business. When there was the least doubt, the individual was detained for interrogation by an officer of the guard. On the other hand I noted, irritably, that incoming individuals and wagons were waved ahead with hardly a glance. Dina and myself attracted little attention from guardsmen or men-

at-arms. My hair was now black; I wore the tunic of the Bakers; and I was accompanied by a woman.

Several times criers had passed through the streets shouting that I was still at large and calling out my description.

Once two guardsmen came to the shop, searching it as I expect most other structures in the city were searched. During this time I climbed out a back window facing another building, and hoisted myself to the flat roof of the shop, returning by the same route when they had gone.

I had, almost from the first in Kamchak’s wagon, been truly fond of Dina, and I think she of me. She was truly a fine, spirited girl, quick-witted, warm-hearted, intelligent and brave. I admired her and feared for her. I knew, though I did not speak of it with her, that she was willingly risking her life to shelter me in her native city. Indeed, it is possible I might have died the first night in Turia had it not been that Dina had seen me, followed me and in my time of need boldly stood forth as my ally. In thinking of her I realized how foolish are certain of the Gorean prejudices with respect to the matter of caste. The Caste of Bakers is not regarded as a high caste, to which one looks for nobility and such; and yet her father and her brothers, outnumbered, had fought and died for their tiny shop; and this courageous girl, with a valour I might not have expected of many warriors, weaponless, alone and friendless, had immediately, asking nothing in return, leaped to my aid, giving me the protection of her home, and her silence, placing at my disposal her knowledge of the city and whatever resources might be hers to command.

When Dina was about her own business, shopping for her clients, usually in the early morning and the late afternoon, I would remain in the rooms above the shop. There I thought long on the matter of the egg of Priest-Kings and the House of Saphrar. In time I would leave the city when I thought it safe and return to the wagons, obtain the tarn and then make a strike for the egg. I did not give myself, however, much hope of success in so desperate a venture. I lived in constant fear that the grey man he with eyes like glass would come to Turia on tarnback and acquire, before I could act, the golden sphere for which so much had been risked, for which apparently more than one man had died.

Sometimes Dina and I, in our walking about the city, would ascend the high walls and look out over the plains.

There was no objection to this on the part of anyone, provided entry into the guard stations was not attempted.

Indeed, the broad walk, some thirty feet wide, within the high walls of Turia, with the view over the plains, is a favourite promenade of Turian couples. During times of danger or siege, of course, none but military personnel or civilian defenders are permitted on the walls.

"You seem troubled, Tarl Cabot," said Dina, by my side, looking with me out over the prairie.

"It is true, my Dina," said I.

"You fear the object you seek will leave the city before you can obtain it?" she asked.

"Yes," I said, "I fear that."

"You wish to leave the city tonight?" she asked.

"I think perhaps I shall," I said.

She knew as well as I that the guards were still questioning those who would depart from Turia, but she knew too, as I, that each day, each hour, I remained in Turia counted against me.

"It is my hope that you will be successful," she said.

I put my arm about her and together we looked out over the parapet.

"Look," I said, "there comes a single merchant wagon it must be safe now on the plains."

"The Tuchuks are gone," she said. And she added, "I shall miss you, Tarl Cabot."

"I shall miss you, too, my Dina of Turia," I told her.

In no hurry to depart from the wall, we stood together there. It was shortly before the tenth Gorean hour, or noon of the Gorean day.

We stood on the wall near the main gate of Turia, through which I had entered the city some four days ago, the morning after the departure of the Tuchuk wagons for the pastures this side of the Ta-Thassa Mountains, beyond which lay the vast, gleaming Thassa itself.

I watched the merchant wagon, large and heavy, wide, with planked sides painted alternately white and gold, covered with a white and gold rain canvas. It was drawn not by the draft tharlarion like most merchant wagons but, like some, by four brown bosk.

"How will you leave the city?" asked Dina.

"By rope," I said. "And on foot."

She leaned over the parapet, looking sceptically down at the stones some hundred feet below.

"It will take time," she said, "and the walls are patrolled closely after sundown, and lit by torches." She looked at me.

"And you will be on foot," she said. "You know we have hunting sleen in Turia?"

"Yes," I said, "I know."

"It is unfortunate," she said, "that you do not have a swift kaiila and then you might, in- broad daylight, hurtle past the guards and make your way into the prairie."

"Even could I steal a kaiila or tharlarion," I said, "there are tarnsmen."

"Yes," she said, "that is true."

Tarnsmen would have little difficulty in finding a rider and mount on the open prairie near Turia. It was almost certain they would be flying within minutes after an alarm was sounded, even though they need be summoned from the baths, the Paga taverns, the gaming rooms of Turia, in which of late, the siege over, they had been freely spending their mercenary gold, much to the delight of Turians. In a few days, their recreations complete, I expected Ha-Keel would weigh up his gold, marshal his men and withdraw through the clouds from the city. I, of course, did not wish to wait a few days or more or however long it might take Ha-Keel to rest his men, square his accounts with Saphrar and depart.

The heavy merchant wagon was near the main gate now and it was being waved forward.

I looked out over the prairie, in the direction that had been taken by the Tuchuk wagons. Some five days now they had been gone. It had seemed strange to me that Kamchak, the resolute, implacable Kamchak of the Tuchuks, had so soon surrendered his assault on the city not that I expected it would have been, if prolonged, successful. Indeed, I respected his wisdom withdrawing in the face of a situation in which there was nothing to be gained and, considering the vulnerability of the wagons and bosk to tarnsmen, much to be lost. He had done the wise thing. But how it must have hurt him, he, Kamchak, to turn the wagons and withdraw from Turia, leaving Kutaituchik unrevenged and Saphrar of Turia triumphant. It had been, in its way, a courageous thing for him to do. I would rather have expected Kamchak to have stood before the walls of Turia, his kaiila saddled, his arrows at hand, until the winds and snows had at last driven him, the Tuchuks, the wagons and the bosk away from the gates of the beleaguered city, the nine-gated, high-walled stronghold of Turia, inviolate and never conquered.

This train of thought was interrupted by the sounds of an altercation below, the shouting of an annoyed guardsman at the gate, the protesting cries of the driver of the merchant wagon. I looked down from the wall, and to my amusement, though I felt sorry for the distraught driver, saw that the right, rear wheel of the wide, heavy wagon had slipped the axle and that the wagon, obviously heavily loaded, was now tilting crazily, and then the axle struck the dirt, imbedding itself.

The driver had immediately leaped down and was gesticulating wildly beside the wheel. Then, irrationally, he put his shoulder under the wagon box and began to push up, trying to right the wagon, surely an impossible task for one man.

This amused several of the guards and some of the passers-by as well, who gathered to watch the driver’s discomfiture. Then the officer of the guard, nearly beside himself with rage, ordered several of his amused men to put their shoulders to the wagon as well. Even the several men, together with the driver, could not right the wagon, and it seemed that levers must be sent for.

I looked away, across the prairie, bemused. Dina was still watching the broil below and laughing, for the driver seemed so utterly distressed and apologetic, cringing and dancing about and scraping before the irate officer. Then I noted across the prairie, hardly remarking it, a streak of dust in the sky.

Even the guards and townsfolk here and there on the wall seemed now to be watching the stalled wagon below.

I looked down again. The driver I noted was a young man, well built. He had blond hair. There seemed to be something familiar about him.

Suddenly I wheeled and gripped the parapet. The streak of dust was now more evident. It was approaching the main gate of Turia.

I seized Dina of Turia in my arms.

"What’s wrong!" she said.

I whispered to her, fiercely. "Return to your home and lock yourself in. Do not go out into the streets!"

"I do not understand," said she. "What are you talking about?"

"Do not ask questions," I ordered her. "Do as I say! Go home, bolt the door to your rooms, do not leave the house!"

"But, Tarl Cabot," she said.

"Hurry!" I said.

"You’re hurting my arms," she cried.

"Obey me!" I commanded.

Suddenly she looked out over the parapet. She, too, saw the dust. Her hand went to her mouth. Her eyes widened in fear.

"You can do nothing," I said. "Run!"

I kissed her savagely and turned her about and thrust her a dozen feet down the walkway inside the wall. She stumbled a few feet and turned. "What of you?" she cried.

"Run!" I commanded.

And Dina of Turia ran down the walkway, along the rim of the high wall of Turia.

Beneath the unbelted tunic of the Bakers, slung under my left arm, its lineaments concealed largely by a short brown cloak worn over the left shoulder, there hung my sword and with it, the quiva. I now, not hurrying, removed the weapons from my tunic, removed the cloak and wrapped them inside it.

I then looked once more over the parapet. The dust was closer now. In a moment I would be able to see the kaiila, the flash of light from the lance blades. Judging from the dust, its dimensions, its speed of approach, the riders, perhaps hundreds of them the first wave, were riding in a narrow column, at full gallop. The narrow column, and probably the Tuchuk spacing, a Hundred and then the space for a Hundred, open, and then another Hundred, and so on, tends to narrow the front of dust, and the spaces between Hundreds gives time for some of the dust to dissipate and also, incidentally, to rise sufficiently so that the progress of the consequent Hundreds is in no way impeded or handicapped. I could now see the first Hundred, five abreast, and then the open space behind them, and then the second Hundred. They were approaching with great rapidity. I now saw a sudden flash of light as the sun took the tips of Tuchuk lances.

Quietly, not wishing to hurry, I descended from the wall and approached the stalled wagon, the open gate, the guards.

Surely in a moment someone on the wall would give the alarm.

At the gate the officer was still berating the blond-haired fellow. He had blue eyes, as I had known he would, for I had recognized him from above.

"You will suffer for this!" the commander of the guard was crying. "You dull fool!"

"Oh mercy, master!" whined Harold of the Tuchuks.

"What is your name?" demanded the officer.

At that moment there was a long, wailing cry of horror from the wall above. "Tuchuks!" The guards suddenly looked about themselves startled. Then two more people on the wall took up the cry, pointing wildly out over the wall. "Tuchuks! Close the gates!"

The officer looked up in alarm, and then he cried out to the men on the windlass platform. "Close the gates!"

"I think you will find," said Harold, "that my wagon is in the way."

Suddenly understanding, the officer cried out in rage and whipped his sword from his sheath but before he could raise his arm the young man had leaped to him and thrust a quiva into his heart. "My name," he said, "is Harold of the Tuchuks!"

There was now screaming on the walls, the rushing of guardsmen toward the wagon. The men on the windlass platform were slowly swinging the great double gates shut as much as possible. Harold had withdrawn his quiva from the breast of the officer. Two men leaped toward him with swords drawn and I leaped in front of him and engaged them, dropping one and wounding the other.

"Well done, Baker," he cried.

I gritted my teeth and met the attack of another man. I could now hear the drumming of kaiila paws beyond the gate, perhaps no more than a pasang away. The double gate had closed now save for the wagon wedged between the two parts of the gate. The wagon bosk, upset by the running men, the shouting and the clank of arms about them, were bellowing wildly and throwing their heads up and down, stomping and pawing in the dust.

My Turian foe took the short sword under the heart. I kicked him from the blade barely in time to meet the attack of two more men.

I heard Harold’s voice behind me. "I suppose while the bread is baking," he was saying, "there is little to do but stand about and improve one’s swordplay."

I might have responded but I was hard pressed.

"I had a friend," Harold was saying, "whose name was Tarl Cabot. By now he would have slain both of them."

I barely turned a blade from my heart.

"And quite some time ago," Harold added.

The man on my left now began to move around me to my left while the other continued to press me from the front. It should have been done seconds ago. I stepped back, getting my back to the wagon, trying to keep their steel from me.

"There is a certain resemblance between yourself and my friend Marl Shot," Harold was saying, "save that your sword is decidedly inferior to his. Also he was of the caste of warriors and would not permit himself to be seen on his funeral pyre in the robes of so low a caste as that of the Bakers. Moreover, his hair was red like a larl from the sun whereas yours is a rather common and, if I may say so, a rather uninspired black."

I managed to slip my blade through the ribs of one man and twist to avoid the-thrust of the other. In an instant the position of the man I had felled was filled by yet another guardsman.

"It would be well to be vigilant also on the right," remarked Harold.

I spun to the right just in time to turn the blade of a third man.

"It would not have been necessary to tell Tarl Cabot that," Harold said.

Some passers-by were now fleeing past, crying out. The great alarm bars of the city were now ringing, struck by iron hammers.

"I sometimes wonder where old Tarl Cabot is," Harold said wistfully.

"You Tuchuk idiot!" I screamed.

Suddenly I saw the faces of the men fighting me turn from rage to fear. They turned and ran from the gate.

"It would now be well," said Harold, "to take refuge under the wagon." I then saw his body dive past, scrambling under the wagon. I threw myself to the ground and rolled under with him.

Almost instantly there was a wild cry, the war cry of the Tuchuks, and the first five kaiila leaped from outside the gate onto the top of the wagon, finding firm footing on what I had taken to be simple rain canvas, but actually was canvas stretched over a load of rocks and earth, accounting for the incredible weight of the wagon, and then bounded from the wagon, two to one side, two the other, and the middle rider actually leaping from the top of the wagon to the dust beyond the harnessed bosk. In an instant another five and then another and another had repeated this manoeuvre and soon, sometimes with squealing of kaiila and dismounting of riders as one beast or another would be crowded between the gates and the others, a Hundred and then another Hundred had hurtled howling into the city, black lacquered shields on the left arms, lance seized in the right hand. About us there were the stamping paws of kaiila, the crying of men, the sound of arms, and always more and more Tuchuks striking the top of the wagon and bounding into the city uttering their war cry.

Each of the Hundreds that entered turned to its own destination, taking different streets and turns, some dismounting and climbing to command the roofs with their small bows. Already I could smell smoke.

Under the wagon with us, crouching, terrified, were three Turians, civilians, a wine vendor, a potter and a girl. The wine vendor and the potter were peeping fearfully from between the wheels at the riders thundering into the streets.

Harold, on his hands and knees, was looking into the eyes of the girl who knelt, too, numb with terror. "I am Harold of the Tuchuks," he was telling her. He deftly removed the veil pins and she scarcely noticed, so terrified was she. "I am not really a bad fellow," he was informing her. "Would you like to be my slave?" She managed to shake her head, No, a tiny motion, her eyes wide with fear. "Ah, well," said Harold, repinning her veil. "It is probably just as well anyway. I already have one slave and two girls in one wagon if I had a wagon would probably be difficult." The girl nodded her head affirmatively. "When you leave the wagon," Harold told her, "you might be stopped by Tuchuks nasty fellows who would like to put your pretty little throat in a collar you understand?" She nodded, Yes. "So you tell them that you are already the slave of Harold the Tuchuk, understand?"

She nodded again. "It will be dishonest on your part," said Harold apologetically, "but these are hard times." There were tears in her eyes. "Then go home and lock yourself in the cellar," he said. He glanced out. There were still riders pouring into the city. "But as yet," he said, "you cannot leave." She nodded, Yes. He then unpinned her veil and took her in his arms, improving the time.

I sat cross-legged under the wagon, my sword across my knees, watching the paws and legs of the swirling kaiila bounding past. I heard the hiss of crossbow quarrels and one rider and his mount stumbled off the wagon top, falling and rolling to one side, others bounding over him. Then I heard the twang of the small ham bows of Tuchuks. Somewhere, off on the other side of the wagon, I heard the heavy grunting of a tharlarion and the squealing of a kaiila, the meeting of lances and shields. I saw a woman, unveiled, hair streaming behind her, twisting, buffeted, among the kaiila, somehow managing to find her way among them and rush between two buildings. The tolling of the alarm bars was now fearful throughout the city. I could hear screaming some hundred yards away. The roof of a building on the left was afire and smoke and sparks were being hurled into the sky and swept by the wind across the adjoining buildings. Some dozen dismounted Tuchuks were now at the great windlass on its platform slowly opening the gates to their maximum width, and when they had done so the Tuchuks, howling and waving their lances, entered the city in ranks of twenty abreast, thus only five ranks to the Hundred. I could now see smoke down the long avenue leading from the gate, in a dozen places. Already I saw a Tuchuk with a dozen silver cups tied on a string to his saddle. Another had a screaming woman by the hair, running her beside his stirrup. And still more Tuchuks bounded into the city. The wall of a building off the main avenue collapsed flaming to the street. I could hear in three or four places the clash of arms, the hiss of the bolts of crossbows, the answering feather swift flight of the barbed Tuchuk war arrows. Another wall, on the other side of the avenue, tumbled downward, two Turian warriors leaping from it, being ridden down by Tuchuks, leaping over the burning debris on kaiilaback, lance in hand.

Then in the clearing inside the gate, on his kaiila, lance in his right fist, turning and barking orders, I saw Kamchak of - the Tuchuks, waving men to the left and right, and to the roof tops. His lance point was red. The black lacquer of his shield was deeply cut and scraped. The metal net that depended from his helmet had been thrown back and his eyes and face were fearful to behold. He was flanked by officers of the Tuchuks, commanders of Thousands, mounted as he was and armed. He turned his kaiila to face the city and it reared and he lifted his shield on his left arm and his lance in his right fist. "I want the blood of Saphrar of Turia," he cried.