I did ask Kamchak why, considering the probabilities that If' the Kataii and the Kassars would not have come to the aid of the Tuchuks, he had not abandoned Turia and returned with his main forces to the wagons. "It was a wager," said he, "which I had made with myself."
"A dangerous wager," I had remarked.
"Perhaps," he said, "but I think I know the Kataii and the Kassars." "The stakes were high," I said.
"They are higher than you know," he said.
"I do not understand," I said.
"The wager is not yet done," he said, but would speak no dusk more. On the day following my arrival in Turia, Harold, on tarnback, relieved at his request of the command of the wagons and herds joined me in the palace of Phanius Turmus must. During the day and night, taking hours of sleep where we could, sometimes on the rugs of the palace of Phanius Tur- mus, sometimes on the stones of the streets by watch fires, Harold and I, at Kamchak's orders, performed a variety of tasks, sometimes joining in the fighting, sometimes acting as liaison between him nod other commanders, sometimes merely positioning men, checking outposts and reconnoitering. Kamchak's forces, on the whole, were so disposed as to push the Turians toward two gates which he had left open and undefended, thus providing a route of escape for civilians and soldiers who would make use of it. From certain post- lions on the walls we could see the stream of refugees fleeing the burning city. They carried food and what possessions they could. The time of the year was the late spring and the prairie's climate was not unkind, though occasionally long l rains must have made the lot of the refugees fleeing toward. other cities miserable. There were occasional small creek, across the paths of the refugees and water was available. Also, Kamchak, to my pleasure but surprise, had had his men drive verr flocks and some Turian bask after the refugees I asked him about this, for Tuchuk warfare, as I under- stood it, was complete, leaving no living thing in its wake, killing even domestic animals and poisoning wells. Certain cities, burned by the Wagon Peoples more than a hundred years ago, were still said to be desolate ruins between their broken walls, silent save for the wind and the occasional foot- fall of a prowling sleen hunting for urts.
"The Wagon Peoples need Turia," said Kamchak, simply. I was thunderstruck. Yet it seemed to me true, for Turia was the main avenue of contact between the Wagon Peoples and the other cities of Gor, the gate through which trade- goods flowed to the wilderness of grasses that was the land of the riders of the kaiila and the herders of bask. Without Turia, to be sure, the Wagon Peoples would undoubtedly be the poorer.
"And," said Kamchak, "the Wagon Peoples need an enemy." "I do not understand," I said.
"Without an enemy," said Kamchak, "they will never stand together and if they fail to stand together, someday they will fall."
"Has this something to do with the 'wager' you spoke of?" I asked.
"Perhaps," said Kamchak.
— Still I was not altogether satisfied, for, on the whole, it seemed to me that Turia might yet have survived even had Kamchak's forces wrought much greater destruction than they had for example, opening but a single gate and permit- ting only a few hundred, rather than thousands to escape the city. "is that all?" I asked. "Is that the only reason that Be many of Turia yet live beyond the city?"
He looked at me, without expression. "Surely, Command" or," he said, "you have duties elsewhere."
I nodded curtly and turned and left the room, dismissed. Long ago I had learned not to press the Tuchuk when he did not wish to speak. But as I left I wondered at his compare five lenience. He professed a cruel hatred of Turia and Turians, and yet he had, considering the normal practices of the Wagon Peoples, not noted for their mercy to helpless foes, treated the unarmed citizens of the city with unique indulgence, permitting them, on the whole, to keep their lives and freedom, though only as refugees beyond the walls. The clearest exception to this, of course, lay in the case of the more beautiful of the city's women, who were treated by Gorean custom, as portions of the booty.
I spent what free time I could in the vicinity of Saphrar's compound. The structures about the compound had been fortified by Tuchuks, and walls of stone and wood had been thrown into the streets and openings between the buildings, thus enclosing the compound. I had been training some hundred Tuchuks in the use of the crossbow, dozens of which had now fallen into our hands. Each warrior had at his disposal five crossbows and four Turian slaves, for winding and loading the bows. These warriors I stationed on roofs of buildings encircling the compound, as close to the walls as possible. The crossbow, though its rate of fire is much slower than the Tuchuk bow, has a much greater range. With the crossbow in our hands, the business of bringing tarns in and out of the compound became proportionately more haz- ardous, which, of course, was what I intended. In fact, to my elation, some of my fledgling crossbowmen, on the first day, brought down four tarns attempting to enter the compound, though, to be sure, several escaped them. If we could get the crossbows into the compound itself, perhaps even to the outside walls, we could for most practical purposes close the compound to entrance and escape by air. I feared, of course, that this addition to our armament might hasten Saphrar's departure, but, as it turned out, it did not, perhaps because the first word Saphrar had of our intentions was the tumbling of dying tarns behind the walls of the compound.
Harold and I chewed on some bask meat roasted over a fire built on the marble floor of the palace of Phanius Turmus. Nearby our tethered kaiila crouched, their paws on the bodies of slain verrs, devouring them.
"Most of the people," Harold was saying, "are out of the city now."
"That's good," l said.
"Kamchak will close the gates soon," said Harold, "and then we shall get to work on Saphrar's house and that tarn roost of Ha-Keel's."
I nodded. The city now largely clear of defenders, and closed to the outside, Kamchak could bring his forces to bear on Saphrar's house, that fort within a fort, and on the tower of Ha-Keel, taking them, if necessary, by storm. Ha-Keel had, we estimated, most of a thousand tarnsmen still with him, plus many Turian guardsmen. Saphrar probably had, — behind his walls, more than three thousand defenders, plus a comparable number of servants and slaves, who might be of some service to him, particularly in such matters as reinforc- ing gates, raising the height of walls, loading crossbows, gathering arrows from within the compound, cooking and distributing food and, in the case of the women, or some of them, pleasing his warriors.
After I had finished the bask meat I lay back on the floor, a cushion beneath my head, and stared at the ceiling. I could see stains from our cooking fire on the vaulted dome. "Are you going to spend the night here?" asked Harold. "I suppose so," I said.
"But some thousand bask came today from the wagons," he said.
I turned to look at him. I knew Kamchak had brought, — over the past few days, several hundred bask to graze near Turia, to use in- feeding his troops.
"What has that to do with where I sleep?" I asked. "You are perhaps going to sleep on the back of a bosk because you are a Tuchuk or something?" I thought that a rather good one, at any rate for me.
But Harold did not seem particularly shattered, and I sighed.
"A Tuchuk," he informed me loftily, "may if he wishes rest comfortably on even the horns of a bask, but only a Koroban is likely to recline on a marble floor when he might just as well sleep upon the pelt of a larl in the wagon of a commander."
"I don't understand," I said.
"I suppose not," said Harold.