I would not dismiss Lord Okimoto.
He was, after all, a daimyo of the Pani. Doubtless some might have come to such a position by inheritance, but few, I supposed, would be likely to long retain its prestige, and its apparent harrowing might, coveted by others, by such means. Though many who receive gifts prove too weak to keep them, I did not think Lord Okimoto was of their number.
One of the Pani, of the entourage of Lord Okimoto, advanced before the platform and addressed the assembled, massed pairs, reiterating the terms of the contest, that each pair would do battle to the death, and the survivor would receive a tarn disk of gold.
So simply, I thought, does Lord Nishida, and Lord Okimoto, select amongst skills, and divest themselves of superfluous minions.
In any event, no one, I was sure, was to be permitted to return to the lower latitudes.
I recalled the wands, and the larls.
Lord Okimoto, without turning his head, said something to Lord Nishida, which I could not hear, and Lord Nishida lifted his hand slightly, signaling the fellow of the Pani, who was serving as herald.
“Begin!” called the herald.
Aëtius was standing near me.
No man moved.
“Fight!” cried the herald. “Begin! Fight! The gold, the gold!”
Then a thousand blades were drawn forth, as though with a single flash of sound, from a thousand sheaths. The hair on the back of my neck rose.
“Fight!” called the herald.
Then each of the thousand, in their ranks, their back to the river, faced the platform.
“Good!” I said, aloud.
Aëtius smiled.
Hundreds of Pani stirred, looked to the platform, uneasy. Glaives, the long-shafted, curved-bladed naginata, were grasped.
From behind the platform, Pani archers rushed forth, standing between the platform and the mercenaries. Arrows were set to the strings of the Pani longbow, arrows which are released at the bow’s lower third, muchly different from the release point of either the peasant or saddle bow.
“They do not fight!” called the herald, in consternation.
I thrust my two Pani attendants to one side and went to stand before the platform, facing the seated Lord Okimoto. Lord Nishida rose to his feet. I became aware then, suddenly, that Tajima, Pertinax, Ichiro, and others, stood with me.
“They will not fight!” complained the herald to the platform.
Pani, both wielders of the glaive and graspers of the bow, looked to the platform.
“No,” I said to Lord Okimoto, “they will not fight. They are sword brothers.”
“They are mercenaries,” cried the herald.
“And sword brothers,” I said.
Lord Okimoto said something to Lord Nishida, which I could not hear, and then, slowly, ponderously, assisted by servitors, he rose to his feet and retired from the platform.
“What did he say?” I asked Lord Nishida, who had remained on the platform, standing.
“He said,” said Lord Nishida, “’these are the men I would have with me.’”
“I do not understand,” I said.
“It has been a test, Tarl Cabot, tarnsman,” he said. “Many men will kill for gold, selling their sword to one for a silver tarsk, to a higher bidder for two, and so on. Of such men we have no need. We have need of men who will place steel before gold, honor before advancement, whose service, once pledged, is inalterable, men whose loyalty is not for sale, men who cannot be divided, and cannot be bought. Many men can, you see, but these are not amongst them. They are the sort of men we need. Our cause deserves them.”
“What is your cause?” I inquired.
“You will learn,” he said. Then he spoke to the herald, “Give each a tarn disk of gold, and dismiss them.”
“There are a thousand tarn disks in the coffer?” I said.
“Of course,” said Lord Nishida. “We did not know what the outcome would be.”
“We hoped,” said Aëtius, “that it would be thus.”
“What if they had fought?” I asked Lord Nishida.
“Then,” said Lord Nishida, “regrettably five hundred would be dead.”
“And what of the survivors?” I asked.
“Each,” he said, “would have been given his golden tarn disk, as promised, and then each,” and here he indicated the glaivesmen and archers about, “would have been killed.”
“I see,” I said. “And what of the limited number of berths on the great ship?”
Lord Nishida smiled. “There is much room,” he said. “Of such men we could use an additional thousand.”
I watched the mercenaries filing past the coffer, each receiving his coin.
Chapter Thirty-Three
I HOLD CONVERSE WITH LORD NISHIDA
“Your plans, I understand it,” I said to Lord Nishida, “have been advanced.”
“Necessarily,” he said, “for our project is no longer secret. The attack at Tarncamp, repulsed, has made that clear. Foes will come again, in much greater strength.”
“Who is the foe?” I asked.
“One of great wealth and power,” he said.
“I do not understand,” I said.
Did these things have to do with Priest-Kings or Kurii, each of which faction was skilled in utilizing humans as their instrumentalities?
I wondered what kaissa was being played, and who were the gamesmen. I did have some sense of the pieces.
“This is a skirmish,” said Lord Nishida. “The war is elsewhere.”
“Where?” I asked.
“I trust,” he said, “you will learn.”
“Perhaps,” I said, “I might be now enlightened.”
“I think not, at present,” he said.
“I think,” I said, “I have served sufficiently.”
“Alas,” said he, “we cannot permit our friends, now so informed, to withdraw from our service.”
“Do you think you can stop me?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said, “but I would greatly regret having to do so.”
“What is your war,” I asked. “Where is it to be fought?”
“The war,” he said, “is far away, and its nature you may learn.”
“It has to do with a far shore?” I said.
“Yes,” he said. “I see that you are interested.”
“I choose my wars with care,” I said.
“One does not always have that option,” said Lord Nishida.
“Allegiances, dynasties?” I asked.
“Perhaps,” he said.
“Men such as you,” I said to Lord Nishida, “are rare in what we sometimes think of as ‘known Gor’.”
“So?” he said.
“How came you here?” I asked.
Surely they had not come to these shores by such a ship or ships. How, then, had they come? And why, then, could they not return as they had come?
A cloud seemed to move in the narrow eyes of Lord Nishida.
I suddenly realized, with a start, that he might know as little of this as I.
“I think,” said Lord Nishida, “that a wager is involved, or perhaps a contest of sorts, amongst spirits, powerful beings.”
“How so?” I said.
“There were battles, several,” said Lord Nishida. “Losses were heavy. Lands were lost. The camps were crowded with the wounded and starving. Our forces were divided. We were pushed to the shore. Our world reeled.”