In the morning the warriors remaining of the two Thou" sands who had ridden with Harold and I would, with the help of other Tuchuks surviving among the wagons, move the wagons and the bask the field. Already the bask were growing uneasy at the smell of death and already the grass about the camp was rustling with the movements of the tiny brown prairie arts, scavengers, come to feed. Whether, after we had moved the wagons and bask some pasangs away, we should remain there, or proceed toward the pastures this side of the Ta-Thassa Mountains, or return toward Turia, was not decided. In the thinking of both Harold and myself, that decision was properly Kamchak's. The Kataii main force and the Kassar main force camped separately some pasangs from the Tuchuk camp and the field and would, in the morning, return to their own wagons. Each had exchanged riders who, from time to time, would report to their own camp from that of the other. Each had also, as had the Tuchuks, set their own pickets. Neither wished the other to withdraw secretly and do for them what they together had done for the Paravaci, and what the Paravaci had attempted to do to the Tuchuks. It was not that they, on this night, truly distrusted I one another so much as the fact that a lifetime of raiding and war had determined each to be, as a simple matter of course, wary of the other.
I myself was anxious to return to Turia as soon as it could be well managed. Harold, willingly enough, volunteered to remain in the camp until the commander of a Thousand could be sent from Turia to relieve him. I appreciated this very much on his part, for I keenly wished to return to Turia as soon as it would be at all practical I had pressing and ~ significant business yet unfinished behind its walls. I would leave in the morning.
That night I found Kamchak's old wagon, and though it had been looted, it had not been burned.
There was no sign of either Aphris or Elizabeth, either about the wagon, or in the overturned, broken sleen cage in which, when I had last seen them, Kamchak had confined them. I was told by a Tuchuk woman that they had not been in the cage when the Paravaci had struck but rather that Aphris had been in the wagon and the barbarian, as she referred to Miss Cardwell, had been sent to another wagon, the whereabouts she did not know. Aphris had, according to the woman, fallen into the hands of the Paravaci who had looted Kamchak's wagon; Elizabeth's fate she did not know; I gathered, of course, from the fact that Elizabeth had been sent to another wagon that Kamchak had sold her. I won- dered who her new master might be and hoped, for her sake, that she would well please him. She might, of course, have also fallen, lice Aphris, into the hands of the Paravaci. I was bitter and sad as I looked about the interior of Kamchak's wagon. The covering on the framework had been torn in several places and the rugs ripped or carried away. The saddle on the side had been cut and the quivas had been taken from their sheaths. The hangings were torn down, the wood of the wagon scratched and marred. Most of the gold and jewels, and precious plate and cups and goblets, were missing, except where here and there a coin or stone might lie missed at the edge of the wagon hides or at the foot of were gone and those that were not had been shattered against the floor, or against the wagon poles, leaving dark stains on the poles and on the hides behind them. The floor was littered with broken glass. Some things, of little or no worth, but which I remembered fondly, were still about. There was a brass ladle that Aphris and Elizabeth had used in cooking and a tin box of yellow Turian sugar, dented in now and its contents scattered; and the large, gray leathery object which I had upon occasion seen Kamchak use as a stool, that which he had once kicked across the floor for my inspection; he had been fond of it, that curiosity, and would perhaps be pleased that it had not been, like most of his things, carried away in the leather loot sacks of Paravaci raiders. I wondered on the fate of Aphris of Turia. Kamchak, I knew, however, cared little for the slave, and would not be much concerned; yet her fate concerned me, and ~ hoped that she might live, that her beauty if not compassion or justice might have won her life for her, be it only as a Paravaci wagon slave; and then, too, I wondered again on the fate of Miss Elizabeth Cardwell, the lovely young New York secretary, so cruelly and so far removed from her own world; and then, exhausted, I lay down on the boards of Kamchak's looted wagon and fell asleep.
Turia was now largely under the control of Tuchuks. For days it had been burning.
The morning after the Battle at the Wagons I had mounted a rested kaiila and set forth for Turia. Some Ahn after departing from the Tuchuk camp I encountered the wagon that carried my tarn, and its guard, still advancing toward the camp. The wagon carrying Harold's tarn and its guard accompanied it. I- left the kaiila with the Tuchuks and mounted my tarn, and in less than an Ahn, saw the shimmer- ing walls of Turia in the distance, and the veils of smoke rising over the city.
The House of Saphrar still stood, and the tower that had been fortified by Ha-Keel's tarnsmen. Aside from these there remained few pockets of organized — resistance in the city, though here and there, in alleys and on roof tops, small groups of Turians furtively and sporadically attempted to carry the war to the invaders. I and Kamchak expected Saphrar to flee by tarn at any moment, for it must now be clear to him that the strike of the Paravaci against the Tuchuk wagons and herds had not forced Kamchak to with- draw; indeed, his forces were now supplemented by Kataii and Kassars, a development which must have horrified him. The only reason that occurred to me why Saphrar had not yet fled was that he was waiting in Turia for an excellent reason possibly the arrival on tarnback of the gray man with whom he had negotiated apparently to secure the golden sphere. I reminded myself, beyond this, that if his house should actually be forced, and himself threatened, he could always flee, with relative safety, at the last moment,At abandoning his men, his servants and slaves to the mercies of ravaging Tuchuks.
I knew that Kamchak was in constant touch, by means of riders, with the wagons of the Tuchuks, and so I did not speak with him of the looting of his wagon, nor of the fate of Aphris of Turia, nor did I deem it well to speak to him of Elizabeth Cardwell, for it seemed evident that he had sold her, and that my inquiry, to a Tuchuk mind, might thus appear prying or impertinent; I would discover, if possible, her master and his whereabouts independently; indeed, for all I knew, perhaps she had been abducted by raiding Paravaci, and none among the Tuchuks would even know.
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.