Chapter 28
ELIZABETH AND I DEPART FROM THE WAGON PEOPLES

Tuka, the slave girl, did not fare well at the hands of Elizabeth Cardwell.

In the camp of the Tuchuks Elizabeth had begged that I not free her for but another hour.

"Why?" I had asked.

"Because," she had said, "masters do not much care to interfere in the squabbles of slaves."

I shrugged. It would be at least another hour before I was ready to take wing for the Sardar, with the egg of Priest-Kings safe in the saddle pack of my tarn.

There were several people gathered about, near the wagon of Kamchak, among them Tuka’s master, and the girl herself. I recalled how cruel she had been to Elizabeth in the long months she had been with the Tuchuks, and how she had tormented her even when she was helpless in the cage of a sleen, mocking her and poking at her with the bosk stick.

Perhaps Tuka gathered what might have been on Elizabeth’s mind, for no sooner had the American girl turned toward her than she turned and fled from the wagon.

Within something like fifty yards we heard a frightened squawk and saw Tulca thrown to the ground with a tackle that might have done credit to a qualified professional player of the American form of football. There shortly thereafter followed a vigorous and dusty broil among the wagons, involving much rolling about, biting, slapping, scratching and, from time to time, the easily identified sound of a small fist, apparently moving with considerable momentum, meeting with venous partially resistant, protoplasmic curvatures.

There was only so much of this and we soon heard Tuka shrieking for mercy. At that juncture, as I recall, Elizabeth was kneeling on top of the Turian maiden with her hands in her hair pounding her head up and down in the dirt. Elizabeth’s Tuchuk leather had been half torn from her but Tuka, who had been clothed only Kajir, had fared not even this well. Indeed, when Elizabeth finished, Tuka wore only the Curia, the red band that ties back the hair, and this band now knotted her wrists behind her back. Elizabeth then tied a thong in Tulca’s nose ring and dragged her to the creek, where she might find a switch. When she found a suitable implement, of proper length and flexibility, of appropriate diameter and suppleness, she then secured Tuka by nose ring and thong to the exposed root of a small but sturdy bush, and thrashed her soundly. Following this, she untied the thong from the root and permitted the girl, thong still streaming from her nose ring, wrists still bound behind her, to run for her master’s wagon, but pursued her each foot of the way like a hunting sleen, administering innumerable stinging incitements to greater and ever greater speed.

At last, panting, bleeding here and there, discoloured in places, half-naked, triumphant, Elizabeth Cardwell returned to my side, where she knelt as a humble, obedient slave girl.

When she had somewhat caught her breath I removed the collar from her throat and freed her.

I set her on the saddle of the tarn, telling her to hold to the pommel of the saddle. When I myself mounted I would tie her to the pommel with binding fibre. I would fasten about myself the broad safety strap, usually purple, which is an invariable portion of the tarn saddle.

Elizabeth did not seem affrighted to be astride the tarn. I was pleased that there were some changes of clothing for her in the pack. I observed that she needed them, or at least one of them.

Kamchak was there, and his Aphris, and Harold and his Hereena, still his slave. She knelt beside him, and once when she dared to touch her cheek to his right thigh he good-naturedly cuffed the slave girl away.

"How are the bosk doing?" I asked Kamchak.

"As well as might be expected," he responded.

I turned to Harold. "Are the quivas sharp?" I inquired.

"One tries to keep them that way," said Harold.

I turned back to Kamchak. "It is important," I reminded him, "to keep the axles of the wagons greased."

"Yes," he said, "I think that is true."

I clasped the hands of the two men.

"I wish you well, Tarl Cabot," said Kamchak.

"I wish you well, Kamchak of the Tuchuks," I said

"You are not really a bad fellow," said Harold, "for a Koroban."

"You are not bad yourself," I granted, "for a Tuchuk."

"I wish you well," said Harold.

"I wish you well," I said.

Swiftly I climbed the short ladder to the tarn saddle, and tied it against the saddle. I then took binding fibre and looped it several times about Miss Cardwell’s waist and then several times about the pommel of the saddle, then tying it.

Harold and Kamchak looked up at me. There were tears in the eyes of both men. Now, diagonally, like a scarlet chevron coursing the flight of the cheek bones, there blazed on the face of Harold the Tuchuk the Courage Scar.

"Never forget," said Kamchak, "that you and I have together held grass and earth."

"I will never forget," I said.

"And while you are remembering things," remarked Harold, "you might recollect that we two together won the Courage Scar in Turia."

"No," I said, "I will not forget that either."

"Your coming and going with the Wagon Peoples," said Kamchak, "has spanned parts of two of our years."

I looked at him, not really understanding. What he said, of course, was true.

"The years," said Harold, smiling, "were two the Year in which Tarl Cabot Came to the Wagon Peoples and the Year in which Tarl Cabot Commanded a Thousand."

Inwardly I gasped. These were year names which would be remembered by the Year Keepers, whose memories knew the names of thousands of consecutive years.

"But," I protested, "there have been many things of much greater importance than those in these years the Siege of Turia, the Taking of the City, the Election of the Ubar San"

"We choose most to remember Tarl Cabot," said Kamchak.

I said nothing.

"If you should ever need the Tuchuks’ Tarl Cabot," said Kamchak, "or the Kataii or the Kassar or the Paravaci you have only to speak and we will ride. We will ride to your side, be it even to the cities of Earth."

"You know of Earth?" I asked. I recalled what I took to be the scepticism of Kamchak and Kutaituchik long ago when they had questioned myself and Elizabeth Cardwell of such matters.

Kamchak smiled. "We Tuchuks know of many things," he said, "Of more than we tell." He grinned. "Good fortune attend you, Tarl Cabot, Commander of a Thousand Tuchuks, Warrior of Ko-ro-ba!"

I lifted my hand to them and then drew on the one-strap and the wings of the great tarn began to strike the resistant air and the Tuchuks on all sides fell back stumbling in the dust and the driven wind smote from beneath the mighty wings of the bird and in that instant we saw the wagons fall away beneath us, extending in their squares for pasangs, and we could see the ribbon of the creek and then the Omen Valley and then the spires of distant Turia, far off.

Elizabeth Cardwell was weeping, and I put my arms about her, to comfort her, and to protect her from the blasts of the swift air. I noted with irritation that the sting of the air had made my own eyes moist as well.