Rebels of Gor (52 page)

“Ten!” shouted Arashi, angrily.

“Ten may be warriors!” said a man.

Obviously those outside, or some of them, had bows at their disposal. This lovely weapon was not possessed by the bandits, who, simple, ignorant men, made do, for the most part, with knives and clubs.

Indeed, might not ten men, each with ten arrows, match even a hundred, if that hundred could not reach them, and bore but knives and clubs?

To be sure, shooting penned verr is poor sport.

“If there are many,” said Arashi, “let them try to enter!”

A few men might hold a bridge, a pass, a threshold.

“In darkness,” he said, “we will rush forth, and break, and scatter!”

“There will be watch fires,” said a man.

“We will bear tables,” said Arashi, “and, so shielded, sustain the first volley, and then disappear in the darkness.”

“There may be many,” said a man.

“If there were many,” said Arashi, “they would force the doors.”

Arashi, I thought, was shrewd. I thought he knew more of war than would be expected of a peasant, and bandit.

I also supposed that he would be aware of another possibility. To be sure, it was one he would be likely to keep to himself. It would not hearten his men.

“I smell smoke!” cried a man.

I could hear a fierce crackling from above.

“The roof is on fire!” screamed a bandit.

I could not see the fire, for the sleeping loft, reachable at one end of the eating hall by a ladder, but I could hear it, and, shortly thereafter, began to feel the heat, and the burning of the air.

Some of the bandits were in the kitchen, by the rear entrance, which they had blocked. Most, seven, not counting their leader, Arashi, were in the eating hall. They stood about, confused, frightened. At the side of the eating hall, backed against the wall, now unthreatened, perhaps forgotten in the distress and tumult, were Tajima and the constable, Yasushi. Both were unarmed. The foragers, two with glaives, the other with a drawn knife, were still between them and the bandits. Tajima was looking about, wildly. Well did the young warrior recognize the imminent danger, which was not at all limited to the blades and clubs of bandits. Yasushi had his eyes fixed on Arashi. He opened and closed his fists, as though he would that a weapon might somehow appear in them.

Arashi swept his hand toward Tajima, Yasushi, and the foragers. “Kill them!” he cried.

The bandits milled, wavering.

Who would be the first to fling himself upon the brandished glaives of determined Ashigaru?

Yet, I was sure the bandits, despite the danger, and despite their fear, and their dread of the unknown quantity of the forces outside, would respond to Arashi’s command.

Indeed, given their misery and confusion I thought they might have been willing to respond to any order addressed to them with sufficient authority, perhaps by anyone.

The two glaives and the knife, I was sure, could not withstand a concerted attack of several desperate men.

“Kill them!” cried Arashi, again.

“Come back!” cried Haruki. But by the time he called out, from back where we had been standing, ill at ease, apprehensive, observant, unobtrusive, even discounted, against the wall, I was across the room. The nearest bandit, poised to attack, facing the foragers, had no time to react. He had barely lifted his head, startled, trying to register the sound, the possible movement, behind him, when the weight of my shoulders struck against the back of his knees, and he pitched backward, suddenly, awkwardly, forcibly, miserably, half paralyzed. I was on my feet. I jammed my heel down on his throat. His blade, a field sword, that purloined from Tajima, was loose in his hand. I stomped on his wrist and the hilt was free, and then, with a sweeping kick, I slid the loose blade across the floor, between the Ashigaru, to Yasushi, who seized it up with a cry of elation.

I crouched down, my hands tied behind me.

I was not attacked.

Two of the bandits, like sheaves of wheat, reeled back, cut from the path of the exultant Yasushi. The others drew back. One threw his blade to the floor.

I could hear the fire roar through the roof, above the sleeping loft. I heard a plank fall. Near the ladder I could see sparks. The sleeping loft, once the fire reached the straw matting, would erupt with flame.

Arashi turned, wildly, seeing Yasushi, armed. He brought up his own field sword and blocked the fierce blow which might have taken his head. His own attempt to strike was turned aside, smartly, twice, by Yasushi, almost indifferently.

“Do not fear,” said Yasushi. “I want you alive.”

“Die!” cried Arashi, rushing upon him, flailing.

“I fear,” said Yasushi, “you cannot touch me.”

“Ai!” cried Arashi, in pain.

“But I can touch you,” said Yasushi.

Arashi winced, drawing back, his shirt bright with blood.

The four bandits in the eating hall, left of the seven, fled from the hall into the kitchen.

“Flee,” they cried to their fellows blockading the door.

“Arrows!” cried one, protestingly.

“A warrior, a warrior inside, is armed,” cried one of the fugitives from the eating hall.

“It is a larl, a larl with fangs of steel,” wept a man. “It is loose!”

“Unbar the door. Escape!” cried another.

Tajima, securing a companion sword from one of the fallen bandits, severed the bonds on my wrists. They parted easily, almost falling away from the blade. Such a blade, lifted, can divide silk.

I heard the heavy wooden bars removed from their mounts at the back door to the inn. Crates, too, which had been piled against the door, were cast aside. I heard an arrow splinter into the door.

I did not know what lay without, in the back, but I did not envy the miserable, fear-stricken bandits who, crying out, burst outward, buffeting one another, into the sunlight.

The three foragers, now each with a glaive, stood back.

Arashi and Yasushi had the main room, the eating hall, muchly to themselves.

The inn grew hot.

Smoke was about, like cruel, dark, dry air.

I retrieved the
tanto
which had been taken from me, from one of the two bandits whom Yasushi had scarcely noticed, acknowledging them merely with two dismissive gestures of steel. I then relieved Haruki of his bonds.

“Behold Yasushi!” exclaimed Tajima. “See the swordwork. The man is a master!”

Yasushi, now, was doing no more than playing with the desperate, half-frenzied Arashi.

“We must depart the inn,” I said. “When the roof falls it may take the loft with it, and the ceiling will cave in.”

Haruki was coughing.

He was far from the pleasantries, the colors and perfumes, of his garden.

“That man is a master!” said Tajima, awed.

“Let us leave,” I said.

“But who is without?” said Tajima.

“It does not much matter,” I said.

A crash came from above.

“The roof falls!” I said.

Hopefully the loft floor would hold, if only long enough for us to make our escape.

There was a great, crackling roar of flames above, and a new wave of heat, and I could see the brightness above through the cracks in the ceiling, cracks I had not even noticed until now, until they were bright with light.

“Kill me!” pleaded Arashi.

“I want you alive,” said Yasushi.

I did not know the fate of the bandits who had exited the inn through the rear entrance, nor, indeed, those whom the fellow I had taken for the innkeeper had failed to discern, when he had thought to inquire into the preparations for departure.

Yasushi then struck the blade from the hand of Arashi, who then stood before him, weary, bleeding, unarmed.

“You are under arrest,” said Yasushi.

Arashi glared angrily at the floor.

“Bind him,” said Yasushi, to the three Ashigaru, the foragers, “two leashes, and the other will herd him with a glaive.”

“Yes, noble one,” said the leader of the foragers.

“I suggest it is time to leave the inn,” I said.

Yasushi handed his field sword to Tajima, and regained his own weapon.

“It is ill-balanced,” said Arashi.

“Not for the hand for which it was formed,” said Yasushi.

Both warriors then, Yasushi and young Tajima, were soon armed with their own weaponry.

I threw down the bars with which Arashi had secured the door. I feared the ceiling, the floor of the loft, would soon crash down, with a blanket of showering, burning planks.

Smoke permeated the room.

The wall of the eating hall, to the left as one would enter, was aflame.

The main entrance to the inn had then been flung open.

Arashi, his upper body swathed with rope, two rope leashes on his neck, each in the keeping of an Ashigaru, stood framed in the doorway.

He was thrust forward, into the courtyard.

Then behind him, his shirt torn, a sword in each hand, stood Yasushi. “I am Yasushi,” he announced, “a march constable of Lord Yamada. This man is Arashi, the bandit. He is my prisoner.”

I saw no one outside, but I knew they were there.

No sooner had Yasushi, Tajima, Haruki, and myself exited the inn than the ceiling collapsed.

We looked about.

“Where are they?” I asked.

“About,” said Yasushi.

“Master!” cried Nezumi, who was the last on a rope coffle, a neck coffle, its free end tied to the back of the laden rice cart. The girls’ hands were tied behind their back. The inn girls wore inn tunics, sleeveless and revealing, and Nezumi less, the tunic of a field slave. On continental Gor, girls are often coffled naked, which protects tunics against the dust of the trail, and such, and are usually chain-coffled, rather than rope-coffled. The chain affords superior security. It is harder to make off with a chained slave than a roped slave. Too, it is thought that a chain has an excellent effect on a woman. A woman on a chain is in little doubt that she is a slave. “Oh, Master!” cried Nezumi, joyously. “You are alive, Master!”

Tajima strode to her, angrily. “On your knees,” he said. “Head down!” “Yes, Master!” she said. The other girls, alarmed, swiftly assumed this position, as well, one quite meaningful to a woman, a position suitable for a woman, a position of slave submission. “Were you given permission to speak?” asked Tajima. “Forgive me, Master,” she said.

“I see no one,” I said.

“They do not wish to be seen,” said Yasushi.

“Perhaps arrows are trained upon us now,” I said.

“I would suppose so,” said Yasushi.

Tajima then approached Yasushi.

“You are a master swordsman,” said Tajima, humbly, bowing to Yasushi, who returned this courtesy. Tajima, of course, had bowed first, and more deeply. “It is rare to see such skill,” said Tajima. “You are a master.”

“Long ago,” said Yasushi, “on the palace grounds of Lord Yamada, Shogun of the Islands, I profited from the instruction of an itinerant master.”

“May I ask, noble one,” inquired Tajima, “his name?”

“You may,” said Yasushi. “His name was Nodachi.”

Chapter Thirty-Three

We Will Depart from the Vicinity of the Inn

“There,” said Haruki.

Several yards away, rising from the grass, was a tall figure, clearly a man of two swords.

Almost at the same time several other figures emerged, as well, some with bows. And four others appeared, too, two from behind each side of the collapsed, burning inn, and one of each of these two held a bow.

“Warriors, all,” said Haruki, marveling.

“Strange,” I said. Usually Ashigaru would be more in evidence.

“How many?” I asked Haruki.

“I see twenty, with a high officer,” said Haruki.

“I, too,” I said.

“Tal,” said Yasushi, bowing.

“I am Kazumitsu,” said he who seemed most prominent amongst the now visible participants in this recently concluded, small siege, “special officer to Lord Yamada, Shogun of the Islands.” He who had identified himself as Kazumitsu was a tall, angular man, with a lean face. His hair, as with many of the warriors, was bound in a knot at the back of his head.

“You have done well,” said Yasushi. “You have engaged the band of my prisoner, Arashi, the bandit. I suspect few escaped.”

“None escaped,” said the angular man.

“Excellent,” said Yasushi.

“I do not understand,” I said to Haruki. “I do not see why twenty warriors would pursue Arashi, and his band, with not even one Ashigaru.”

“It does not bode well, noble one,” said Haruki.

“Many have sought Arashi, and failed to find him,” said Yasushi. “Rather it is he who finds others. He moves unseen, like the wind, he strikes like lightning, and vanishes as swiftly. How did you mark his path, how did you locate him? Many, for months, have failed? How is it that you, of all, found him?”