Blood Brothers of Gor

Chapter 27 FIGHTING

"They are coming! They are coming!" we heard. "The Kinyanpi! They are coming!"

Several times in the afternoon had the battle whistles formed from the wing bones of taloned Herlits, blasted in the air, and the feathered battle staffs raise and lowered, communicating their signals to the combatants, not only to the Kaiila but to the Yellow Knives, as well. I did not know the codes, nor, for the most part, did Cuwignaka, as he had not been trained in the whirling, shifting tactics of his people, but Hci, and others, knew them well, much as Gorean soldiers know the meaning and the beating of tarn drums. We followed their lead. Not once had Mahpiyasapa, communicating his will by the whistles and battle staffs, permitted his brave, ragged lines to pursue retreating Yellow Knives. I think this was wise for, as far as we could conjecture, we were muchly outnumbered. Surely fresh Yellow Knives had, from time to time, swept into the combat. Others, too, had been seen on nearby hills. The feigned retreat, drawing pursuers, strung out and disaligned into ambush, is a favoiet tactic of red savages. Too, we wished to hold the camp. In it were women and children. In it was the meat which must nourish the Kaiila in the impending winter.

"They are coming," we heard. "The Kinyanpi!"

"Maybe it is smaller birds, a flock, much closer," said a man.

We heard blasts on the whistles of war.

"It is the Kinyanpi," said a man.

"Let us mount up," said Cuwignaka, swallowing down a piece of pemmican.

I continued to wipe down the flanks of the kaiila.

Warriors about me were mounting. Many of the animals were covered with dust to the belly. The hair about the lower jaws of many of them was stiff with dried blood, from the control of the jaw ropes. Blood, too, was on the braided leather.

I heard men about me. Some recounted their coups aloud to themselves. Some called upon their medicine helpers for assistance, usually birds and animals. Others sang their medicines of war. Still others spoke to their shields and weapons, telling them what would be expected of them. Many sang their death songs. "Though I die it is true the sun will blaze in the sky. Though I die it is true the grass will grow. Though I die it is true the kailiauk will come when the grass is high."

I made the jaw rope snug again on the lower jaw of my kaiila. Then, shield and lance in hand, I mounted.

"Do you think we can stand against the Kinyanpi?" asked Cuwignaka.

"I think so," I said. "Kahintokapa has prepared well." Arches concealed under ropes and hidden among lodges lay between te Kinyanpi and our main forces, at the western edge of the camp. If the Kinyanpi attacked as they had before they would encounter, unexpectedly, sheets of arrows fired from close range. They would then, too, if they maintained their early attack patter, strike inot the ropes strung between lodges. These were intended to serve the same purposes as the swaying, almost invisible tarn wire sometimes strung in the high cities, wires which can cut the wings from a bird or tear off the head or arm of a rider. Sharpened stakes, too, fashioned from lodge poles, supported by shorter, crossed poles, archers at their base, could be oriented to the trajectory of the attack. This would tend to prevent, we hoped, not only swooping, talon attacks but also the close-quarters work of which the red savage, with his small bow, is fond.

We expected the Kinyanpi to be much less effective at a greater distance. too, if the Kinyanpi were at heights of even fifty or a hundred feet, it would be difficult for them to fire accurately through the overhead network of ropes and cloths which we had suspended between several of the lodges. This form of reticulation is calculated to ave a confusing and distractive effect on wiftly moving, airborne archers. By the time a target can be identified there is usually not enough time to fire. The ground-based archer, on the other hand, the defender, has the solid earth beneath him, and he, because of his nearness to the openings in the network, or loosely linked canopy, can both track the approaching enemy and fire through it with ease and efficiency. In this respect it functions something like a window. It is difficult to hit a particular window, particularly at late notice, while one is moving at high speed, but it is ot difficult to see what is approaching through one and to fire through it. The defender, meanwhile, between passes, may change his position or, if you like, window.

"Do you think the Yellow Knives will coordinate their attack with that of the Kinyanpi?" asked a man.

"I think they should," I said.

"I think they have had their stomach filled at the moment with fightin," said Cuwignaka. "I think they will wait to let the Kinyanpi do their work for them."

"Perhaps," I said.

"If we can stand against the Kinyanpi," said the man. "I think we can hold the camp."

"I think so," I said.

"I can see them," said Cuwignaka, turned on his kaiila. "I can see the riders clearly. They are coming in, as before."

"I think it will be the last time the Kinyanpi will attack a Kaiila camp so incautiously," I said.

We then turned to face the Yellow Knives, some three hundred yards away. We were in long lines, our ranks two and three deep. We kept a distance of a lance length between riders. This was to minimize hits by the Kinyanpi. Our kaiila shifted under us. We waited, under the network of ropes and cloths. I heard songs of war.

There was a sudden, horrified scream of a tarn, impaled.

"Shields overhead!" I cried.

A tarn, its wings like thunder, smote the air below us, some twenty feet over our heads, and ten another.

Other tarns, I could see, had suddenly swerved or begun to climb.

The kaiila under us turned, startled, scratching at the dust.

"Watch the Yellow Knives!" I called to Cuwignaka.

"They are not moving," said Cuwignaka. "They are holding in place."

A tarn then was caught under the ropes. Screaming, it tore its way free, pulling leather and cloth with it. Its rider was held on its back, lifeless, his knees under the girth rope, his body riddled with arrows. Two other birds hung in the netting, one with its neck broken and the other with a wing half torn away. The riders were pulled from their backs and hacked to pieces. The tarn with the useless wing snapped with its great back at its foes and then was killed with lance thrusts. One rider fell from the back of a struck tarn and caught in the netting, hanging head down. His hands were held and his throat was cut. Another perished similarly, lances thurst upward through the ropes and cloth, until he could be pulled down, falling to the ground, there to die under knives. I saw, looking wildly about, tarns flying erratically, hit with arrows. I saw two fall. One rider I saw fall from the back of a tarn, some few hundred yards to the west and north of the camp. I looked wildly back to the west. The Yellow Knives had not moved.

"How many were there?" I asked Cuwignaka.

"Forty, fifty?" speculated Cuwignaka. "I do not know. Not so many as before."

I did not know, either, how many were in the original attack. Surely those numbers would still be in the vicinity. I would have guessed some two hundred riders would have struck in the first attack, with which had taken the camp by surprise. Cuwignaka's speculations as to the number sinvolved in the recent skirmish was congruent with my own estimations. They majority of the Kinyanpi, for some reason, it seemed, had been held back. This puzzled me. The attack, of course, I told myself, might have been primarily and excursionalry probe, a venture to determine the nature and strength of our defenses. If that were the case, I thought grimly to myself, its riders would have ample information to report to their superiors.

"Why do you think so few attacked?" I asked Cuwignaka.

"I do not know," he said. "Where a smaller number attacks a larger number there is more glory."

I smiled to myself. Perhaps Cuwignaka was right. While I had busied myself with the prosaic categories of military arithmetic and motivation, I had perhaps neglected the mentality of the enemy, which, in some cases, as in that of red savages, might be eccentric and unusual, at least when viewed from an inadequate or alien perspective. If glory is more important to the enemy then normal military objectives, calculated in costs and units, then one, accordingly, is advised to make certain adjustments in one's thinking about him.

"But," said Cuwignaka, "that is not really our way. Surviving is more important then glory."

"Then why did so few attack?" I asked.

"I do not know," said Cuwignaka.

I was irritated. Now, my deifce of explanation had tumbled. Now, no more than Cuwignaka, did I understand the nature of the recent attack.

"Look," said a man.

"I see," I said.

A single tarnsman, high in the sky, was flying towards the Yellow Knives. Then he alit, among them.

"Surely now they will coordinate their forces," said Cuwignaka.

"I think so," I said.