"And it will be the most determined of all," said Hci, grimly.
"And who will be its leaders?" asked Cuwignaka.
"The beasts, of course," I said.
"Yes," said Hci.
"It is nearly noon," said Cuwignaka, looking upward.
"I hear drums," I said.
"Medicine drums," said Hci.
"Soldiers are leaving the camp," I said.
"Yes," said Hci.
"They are riding south," I said.
"Interesting," said Hci.
"There is a Kinyanpi rider," said Cuwignaka, pointing upward.
"Doubtless a scout," said Hci.
"There is movement now, in the Yellow-Knife camp," I said.
"They are coming," said Hci.
"Who is their lead?" asked Cuwignaka.
"The beasts," I said.
"We do not know how long the day will last," said Hci. "Feed and water Bloketu."
She was roped to her post, just as she had been the first two days.
"Do you beg food and drink?" asked Cuwignaka.
"Yes, Master," she said.
He fed her and watered her.
"Thank you for my food and drink, Master," she said.
"I beg food and drink," said Iwoso, suddenly.
Shall I give her food and water?" asked Cuwignaka.
Iwoso looked at Hci. The decision would obviously be his. Yesterday she had not begged. Accordingly, as it is customarily the case when begging is required, she had received neither food nor drink.
"Yes," said Hci.
Iwoso was then fed and watered. Her mouth, her head extended, clung greedily, desperately to the spout of the water bag. Then it was pulled from between her teeth. She tried to lick at the water at the side of her mouth.
"Do you think me weak, Iwoso," asked Hci, "that I have so soon permitted you food and drink?"
She looked at him puzzled.
"Have you not asked yourself why I might do this, so soon?" he asked.
She looked at him, frightened.
"I am doing it to improve your appearance," he said, "much as one might water an animal before its sale, that you will look your best for the Yellow Knives."
"Again you use me for your purposes, tricking me!" she said.
"You may now thank me for your food and drink," he said.
"Thank you for my food and drink," she said, in fury.
"More humbly, more appropriately," said Hci.
"I thank you for my food and drink," she said. "I thank you for it — humbly," she said.
Hci looked at her.
"— My captor," she added.
Hci put his hand under her chin and held her head up. "Do you think her throat would look well in a collar?" he asked Cuwignaka.
"Yes," said Cuwignaka.
"I will never wear a collar!" said Iwoso, her head held up by Hci's hand.
"My collar?" asked Hci.
"Of course," said Cuwignaka.
"I will never wear your collar!" said Iwoso. "I would die first!"
"The beast in the lead," I said, "is called Sardak. That closest to him is Kog."
"They are fearsome things," said Cuwignaka.
"Surely," said Hci, joining us, "they are of the medicine world."
"Do not be afraid," I said to him.
"They expect all opposition to crumble before them, at their very appearance," said Cuwignaka, bitterly.
"They can bleed and die, like men," I told Hci.
"Things of the mdicine world," said Hci, "may sometimes seem to bleed and die, but they do not truly do so."
"They are not of the medicine world," I said.
"I am uneasy," said Hci.
"The Kaiila must hold against them," I said.
"Soldiers," called a man, running along the escarpment, "roped together, are beginning to climb the back face of the mountain!"
"It is to be a coordinated attack," said Cuwignaka.
"Then," I said, looking upward, "I think we may soon expect the Kinyanpi."
"It is the end for you!" cried Iwoso. "You are finished!"
"Look!" cried Hci, suddenly, pointing upward.
We heard the drums on the trail, beten by medicne men, dancing about the beasts. They Yellow Knives, in lines behind them, advanced.
"Look!" insisted Hci.
In the sky there was a tarn.
My heart leapt.
"We are doomed!" cried Hci.
Men about us screamed, and threw their arms before their faces.
We crouched down, dust and rocks flying past us, that we not be forced from the edge of the escarpment by the turbulent blasts of those mighty, beating wings. Then the monster had alit amongst us.
"It is Wakanglisapa!" cried Hci. "It is Wkanglisapa, the Medicine Tarn!"
I approached the beast slowly. Then I put out my hand and touched its beak. I then, as it loweed its head, took its head in my hands and wept. "Greetings, Ubar of the Skies," I said. "We are together again."
"There is a cloud in the east," said a man, "small, swiftly moving."
"It will be Kinyanpi," I said. "My friend has preceded them."
Men looked at one another.
"Bring a girth rope, and reins," I said. "And trow back the lodge covers and poles which conceal our tarns. We must greet our visitors."
Men hurried away.
Yesterday night the great beacon of brush had been lit on the summit of Council Rock. It had been lit the first in a line of ten such beacons. Each, in turn, as soon as the light of the preceding beacon had been visible, had been lit. Before morning, some singly, some in groups of two or three, under the cover of darkness, our tarns had been brought to Council Rock, there to be concealed within specially prepared lodges. There were eighteen of these beasts, that which had been a Kinyanpi mount which had come to us on the prairie, the two wild tarns we had captured by means of the tarn pits, and the fifteen tarns we had managed to secure in our subsequent raid. These tarns we had brought from Two Feathers to the Waniyanpi compound commanded by Seibar. There, concealed by day and trained by night, and housed withing striking distance of Council Rock, they had waited for our signal.
I put the girl rope on the great black tarn. I fixed the reins upon it.
I heard the approach of the drums on the trail ascending to the summit.
"The soldiers on the back face near the top," said a man.
"Repel them as you can," I said.
Lodges were thrown back, and te poles and skins. Tarns were revealed.
I leaped to the back of Ubar of the Skies. My weapons were handed to me.
Canka, Hci and Cuwignaka hurried to mouth their tarns.
Eagerly, awaiting no command or signal, his neck outstreched, Ubar of the Skies looked to the air.
"Ko-ro-ba!" I cried, the name of the city to which I had first been brought on Gor, Ko-ro-ba, the Towers of the Morning.
The tarn screamed.
Blasts of air tore though my hair. The feathers on my tem-wood lance lashed backwards, like flags snapping in the wind.
I heard other tarns, too, screaming behind me, and heard the beatings of wings.
Council Rock fell away beneath me.
Like a dark streak, vengeful and fearful, the great black tarn clove the skies.
Suddenly bodies and tarns seemed to be exploding about me as we entered, penetrating, the startled formations of the Kinyanpi. No resistance in the air had they expected, nor none this soon. I saw eyes, wild, about me.
My lance took a rider from his mount, tearinghim back out of the girth rope, and then he was spinning, wildly flailing, screaming and turning, growing smaller, journeying with terrilbe, accelerative force, seemingly eccentrically, to the turf below, it seeming to rock and shift with my movements, like liquid in a bowl.
Ubar of the skies reared back, talons raking, screaming. I saw tangles of intestines torn from the body of a tarn. I turned the stroke of a lance with my small shield.I heard a man scream, his arm gone. The disemboweled tarn fell away from us, fluttering, spining downward. With a shake of its mighty head my tarn flung the shield from its beak, a hundred feet away, the arm still inserted in the shield straps. Then the tarn was climbing, climbing. Tarns swirled about us, below us. Some struck one another. I gave the tarn his rein. Four tarns began to follow us. Still did my tarn climb. Through clouds, such bright, lofty fogs, did we ascend. Below us, like birds springing wonderously from the snow, tarns and their riders emerged from the clouds, following us.