Vagabonds of Gor (22 page)

"It is my surmise," I said, "that it has been empty for weeks."

"Impossible!" he said.

"I suspect it is simply an abandoned barge," I said. "Such are not unknown in the delta."

"No," said he, "it is a vessel of the Cosian rear guard!"

"Perhaps," I said.

"Or one of their transports, straggling, abandoned!"

"Perhaps," I granted him.

He went to one of the small windows, and looked out, angrily.

"It would seem, however, would it not," I asked, "to be an unlikely choice for a troop transport?"

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"You are not of this part of the country," I said, "not from the delta, or the Vosk, or Port Kar," I said.

"I do not understand," he said.

"Examine the window before you, its screen," I said. He looked at the apparatus, burst in, hanging loose. "Yes?" he said.

"Consider the position of the opening lever," I said. "Yes!" he said.

"The window could not be opened from the inside," I said. "Only from the outside."

"Yes," he said.

"Also, in this particular barge," I said, "given the depth of the cabin floor, one could not, sitting, look directly out the windows, even if they were opened. One, at best, would be likely to see only a patch of sky."

"I see," he said, glumly.

"And if the shutters were closed," I said, "the interior of the cabin would be, for the most part, plunged into darkness. Too, you can well imagine the conditions within the cabin, the heat, and such, if the shutters were closed."

"Of course," he said.

"Examine, too," I said, "the benches here, within, where they are still in place."

"I see," he said, bitterly.

"You or I might find them uncomfortably low," I said, "but for a shorter-legged organism, they might be quite suitable."

"Yes," he said.

"And here and there," I said, "attached to some of the benches, I think you can detect the presence of ankle stocks, and, on the attached armrests, wrist stocks."

"But for rather small ankles and wrists," he said.

"Yes," I said, "and here and there, similarly, you can see, still in place, the iron framework for the insertions of the neck planks. You will note, too, that the matching semicircular apertures in the planks, there are some there, on the floor, are rather small."

"Yes," he said.

"This barge," I said, "is of a type used in Port Kar, on the canals, and in the delta, for example, between Port Kar, and other cities, and the Vosk towns, particularly Turmus and Ven, for the transportation, in utter helplessness and total ignorance, of female slaves."

"Yes," he said. "I see."

"Of course, such vessels are used elsewhere, as well," I said.

"In the south," he said, "we often transport slaves hooded, or in covered cages. Sometimes we ship them in boxes, the air holes of which are baffled, so that they may not be seen through."

I nodded. There are many such devices. One of the simplest and most common is the slave sack, into which the girl, gagged, and with her hands braceleted behind her back, is commonly introduced headfirst. These devices have in common the feature of ensuring the total helplessness of the slave and, if one wishes, her ignorance of her destination, route and such. Sometimes, of course, one wishes the slave to know where she is being taken, and what is to be done with her, particularly if this information is likely to increase her arousal, her terror, her desire to please, and so forth. For example, it seldom hurts to let a former free woman know that she is now being delivered as a naked slave to the gardens of a mortal enemy.

One of the most common ways of transporting slaves, of course, is by slave wagon. The most common sort is a stout wagon with a central, locking bar running the length of the wagon bed, to which the girls are shackled, usually by the ankles. Most such wagons are squarish and have covers which may be pulled down and belted in place. In this way one may shield the girls, if one wishes, from such things as the sun and the rain. Too, of course, the cover may be used to simply close them in. Many slave girls, too, of course, are moved from one place to another on foot, in coffle.

The officer came away from the window, angrily, and looked down at the benches. Several of them had the varnish worn from them. The barge, in its day, I suspected, had frequently plied the delta, probably between Port Kar, and other cities, and Turmus and Ven. Slave girls are normally transported nude.

"And so," said the officer, angrily, "we have spent days pursuing a slave barge."

"It seems so," I said.

"The Cosians, then," he said, "must still be in front of us."

I was silent. This did not seem to me likely, or at least not in numbers.

At this moment we heard some shouting outside, some cries.

The officer looked up, puzzled, and then, paying me no mind, went up the stairs to the stern deck.

I followed him.

"We seldom saw them!" cried a fellow. "It was as though the rence were alive!"

I emerged onto the stern deck, blinking against the sun, where my keeper, who was waiting for me, unlooping the rope leash from the yoke, and, keeping me on a short tether, about a foot Gorean in length, the remaining portion of the leash coiled in his hand, recovered my charge.

"We had no chance," wept a fellow from the water. "We did not even see them!"

"Where?" demanded the officer, at the barge rail.

"On the right!" called up a fellow.

Following my keeper, who, too, was curious, I went to the rail. In the water, below, with the many others who had originally surrounded and charged the barge, were some six or seven other fellows, distraught, haggard, wild-eyed, some bleeding, some supporting their fellows.

"Numbers?" inquired the officer.

"There must have been hundreds of them, for pasangs," said a fellow from below, in the water.

"We could not fight," said another. "We could not find them. There seemed little, if anything, to draw against!"

"Only a shadow," wept a man, "a movement in the rence, a suspicion, and then the arrows, and the arrows!"

"What were the casualties?" asked the officer.

"It was a rout, a slaughter!" cried a fellow.

"What is your estimate of the casualties?" repeated the officer, insistently.

"The right flank is gone!" wept a man.

"Gone!" cried another.

I could see other fellows making their way towards us, through the rence, some dozens, more survivors, many wounded.

I did not personally think the right flank was gone, but I gathered it had grievously suffered, that it had undergone severe losses, that it was routed, that it was decimated. These fellows near us, for example, were from the right flank. They had not been able, it seemed, to rally, or reform. When one has been in a disastrous action, particularly a mysterious one which has not been anticipated, one which one does not fully understand, there is a tendency of the survivors to overestimate casualties. A fellow, for example, who has seen several fall near him, in his own tiny place of war, often as narrow as a few yards in width, has a tendency to suppose these losses are typical of the entire field, that they characterize the day itself. Similarly, of course, there are occasions in which a fellow, victorious in his purview, learns only later, and to his dismay, that his side is in retreat, that the battle, as a whole, was lost. Still, I did not doubt but what the losses were considerable. The entire right flank might have to be reorganized.

"We will counterattack," said the officer.

"Your foe will not be there," I said.

"This is a tragic day for Ar," said a fellow.

More soldiers were wading, some staggering, toward us, these come from the right.

"The first engagement to Cos," said a fellow bitterly.

"Who would have thought this could happen?" said a man.

"Vengeance upon the Cosian sleen!" cried a man.

"The missiles used against you were not quarrels, not bolts," I said.

"No," said a fellow, "arrows."

"Arrows," said I, "sped from the peasant bow." In the last few years, the use of the peasant bow, beginning in the vicinity of the tidal marshes, had spread rapidly eastward throughout the delta. The materials for the weapon and its missiles, not native to the delta, are acquired largely through trade. Long ago the rencers had learned its power. They had never forgotten it. By means of it they had become formidable foes. The combination of the delta, with its natural defenses, and the peasant bow, made the rencers all but invulnerable.

The officer looked at me.

"You are not dealing with Cosians," I said. "You are dealing with rencers."

"People of scaling knives, of throwing sticks, and fish spears!" laughed a fellow.

"And of the peasant bow," I said.

"Surely you jest?" said the officer.

"Did you hear, before the attack," I asked, "the cries of marsh gants?"

"Yes," said one of the fellows in the water.

"It is by means of such cries that rencers communicate during the day," I said. "At night they use the cries of Vosk gulls."

"We will counterattack," said the officer.

"You will not find them," I said.

"We will send out scouts," he said.

"They would not return," I said. To be sure, it was possible to scout rencers, but normally this could be done only by individuals wise to the ways of the delta, in most cases other rencers. The forces of Ar in the delta, if I were not mistaken, would not have experienced scouts with them. Even so small a thing as this constituted yet another indication of the precipitateness of Ar, her unreadiness to enter the delta.

"We must not allow them to press their advantage," said the officer.

Men were still streaming in from the right.

"They will not press their advantage--as yet," I said.

" 'As yet'?" he asked.

"It is a different form of warfare," I said.

"It is not warfare," said a man. "It is brigandage, it is ambush and banditry!"

"I would not pursue them," I said. "They will melt away before you, perhaps to close on your flanks."

"What is your recommendation?" he asked.

"I would set up defense perimeters," I said.

"Labienus is in command," said a fellow, angrily. 'Labienus' was the name of the officer.

"Do not listen to him," said another. "Surely he is in sympathy with them."

"He may be one of them!" said another.

"He is an enemy!" said another.

"Kill him!" said another.

"You anticipate another attack?" asked the officer.