Blood Brothers of Gor

I remained a bit behind. I did not wish to be struck in the darkness. I was white.

Then, in a moment, I went and stood near the ledge. The rocky face was dark with darkness. It was hard to tell what might be men and what shadows.

I spun and caught a lance being thrust toward me. "Tatankasa!" cried a man.

My clothes seemed suddenly soaked with cold sweat. I released the lance.

The soldiers seemed, for the most part, to have been swept from the ledge.

Bows and arrows were brought from the lodges. Men, with impunity, began firing into the shadows. More than once, below me, on the rock face, I saw a body pitch outward and then fall, silently, it seemed, into the darkness below.

"The torch!" I called. "Light the brush!"

An arm reached over the ledge, near me. I saw a face, wild. Hci thrust down with the point of his lance. The man plummeted backwards, down and away into the darkness.

The mystery of the silent climbers, however, had been solved. The man had been gagged. I could only conjecture how many might have fallen in the darkness, essaying that treacherous, terrible ascent.

A torch was brought. With it we set fire to the great bundles of brush, on ropes, which had been prepared earlier. These flaming bundles, on their ropes, were then hurled over the edge, to hang burning against the rocky face.

I again looked over the edge. The men, in great numbers, like insects, now illuminated, clung precariously to the rock. They could offere no defense. Barely could they hold thier position. At their leisure the Kaiila bowmen picked their targets. Some men, in terror, lost their hold on the rock. Others, terrified, remained where they were, to die. Most began, in haste, to attempt the desscent. Many of these fell. Some men released their hold altogether on the rock, hoping to risk less in the terrors of the slide downward than in facing the Kaiila arrows.

"How many died?" asked Cuwignaka.

I looked down. I could not see, in the darkness, to the foot of the mountain.

"I do not know," I said.

"Many?" asked Cuwignaka.

"Yes," I said. "Many."

Chapter 46

THE SECOND DAY OF WAR

"I heard noises last night, cries," said Iwoso. "Oh!" she said.

I had tightened her neck bonds, pulling her head back against the post. She was then bound as she had been the previous day, helplessly, indentically, as Hci had wished.

It was near dawn. Bloketu was already bound to her post.

"There was an action," I said. "It need not concern you."

Iwoso struggled briefly in her ropes, futilely. I then tightened them.

"Must I be displayed like this?" she asked.

"Yes," I said. "Hci, your captor, finds it amusing."

She struggled, angrily, helplessly.

"Too, he thinks it might be of intrest to you, to observe the issuance of these military affairs, particularly as you are not likely to be unaffected by their outcome."

She looked at me, frightened.

"Too, of course," I said, "your presence here, naked, in your ropes, tied like a slave, is calculated to be an incitement to the Yellow Knives."

"You use me in many ways, it seems," she said, bitterly, "to serve your purposes."

"You are a captive female," I said. "It is thus only natural that you be used to serve the purposes of your captors."

"You use me," she said, "as thoughtlessly and brazenly as a slave!"

I regarded her. "Yes," I said, "you might say that."

She looked away.

"I would like to make a recommendation," I said.

She did not look at me.

"Things were perhaps closer for you yesterday than you realize," I said.

She looked at me.

"It has to do with keeping you alive, my proud, pretty Iwoso," I said.

"Oh?" she said.

"Hci is your captor," I said, "and he is not a patient man. I think you should show him total respect and obey him with absolute perfection."

She looked at me, angrily.

"Do you understand?" I asked.

"Yes," she said.

I turned away, to look down at the Yellow-Knife camp.

"Almost as though I were a slave!" she said.

"Yes," I said, "almost as though you were a slave."

"Never!" she cried.

"As you will, Lady Iwoso," I said. I continued looking down at the Yellow-Knife camp. I could see, too, their kaiila, grazing behind the camp.

"Yesterday," she said, "I was weak! But I am not weak today!"

"The whip," I said, "is often useful in dispelling such illusions from the mind of women."

She was silent.

"Have you ever been whipped, Lady Iwoso?" I asked.

"No," she said.

"The Yellow Knives," said Cuwignaka, coming over to where I stood, "are begi

"It would appear to be a major assult," said Hci, joining us.

"This time they will finish you!" called Iwoso.

"Iwoso seems to be in good spirits today," observed Cuwignaka.

"She is in fine fettle," I said.

"Tonight," said Iwoso, "I will be with my people, safe!"

"What are they carrying?" asked Hci.

"It looks like screens," I said, "probably of branches and hides." Such devices, I speculated, dismally, would arrest or turn most arrows from the bows of red savages. Their small rapidity of fire, so useful from the back of a racing kaiila, lacked the driving power, naturally enough, of heavier weapons. In impace they were inferior not only to the peasant bow, Gor's fiercest missile weapon, but even the common, hand-drawn crossbow.

"Some soldiers are with them," I said.

"Yes," said Hci.

"Do you see any sign of the beasts?" I asked. I did not.

"No," said Hci.

"Free me," said Iwoso. "There are soldiers there. Free me, and sue for peace. Beg to be permitted to surrender. Some of you might be spared."

"There are not enough soldiers to control the Yellow Knives," said Cuwignaka.

"And I doubt," I said, "that either the soldiers or the beasts, having come this far, and sustained such losses, are much interested in the taking of prisoners." To be sure, beyone such considerations, there was little to do in the Barrens with prisoners, unless they were females, who might then be reduced as love prizes to suitable, helpless slaveries.

"Surrender!" said Iwoso. "Surrender!"

"What is wrong with Iwoso this morning?" inquired Hci.

"I do not think that she has taken leave or her senses," I said. "Rather I think that yesterday she was forced to look inside of herself, and there she discovered things which frightened her. She is now trying to fight them. She is now, in compensation, unwilling to accept these startling, alarming insights, trying to restore her former self-image, trying to be pronouncedly defiant."

"What are you saying?" asked Iwoso.

"she thinks that yesterday she was weak, but that today she is strong."

"Interesting," said Hci. He walked over to Iwoso. "Do you think that you are strong?" he asked.

"Yes!" she said.

"You are mistaken," he said.

"They are coming up the trail now," said Cuwignaka.

The Yellow Knives, probably some four of five hundred of them, with perhaps some fifty soldiers, were now climbing the trail. They moved slowly, to conserve their strength. Some of them held our position. Others held them overhead, advancing beneath them. There was little doubt their main party would reach the barricade at the summit in much of its full strength. I looked at the ropes left lying at intervals along the edge of the escarpment. I had little doubt but what their utility was oon to be realized.

"In the distance, to the west," I said, "the praries seem clear."

"Yes," said Cuwignaka.

"They are passing the first barricade," observed Hci. This, now, was the lower barricade, the first to be met in the ascent. We had lowered it into place yesterday, to make the retreat of kaiila difficult. Undefended, it posed no serious obstacle to men afoot.