This was possible, as the word of the Ubar takes precedence over councils.
“Had we known Marlenus was in the city,” said a man, “we should have withdrawn.”
“Word,” said another, “was soon in the streets, and it swept from insula to insula, and to the lesser cylinders.”
“But we were not immediately aware of this,” said a man. “Surely the great bar had not yet rung, signaling the rising.”
“They planned swiftly, and well,” said another fellow, shuddering.
“Weapons had been forbidden to the populace,” said another, but many had been concealed, and there is little which may not figure as a weapon, axes and hammers, the implements of agriculture, planks, poles and sticks, the very stones of the streets.”
I nodded. A tyrant state always wishes to disarm the public, for it understands its secret intents with respect to that public, and wants it at its mercy. This disarming is always, of course, alleged to be in the public’s best interest, as though the public would be safest when least capable of defending itself.
“Many of Ar, particularly in the higher, richer cylinders,” said a fellow, “had collaborated with us, had abetted the occupation, had shared in the looting of the city.”
I supposed that was true. There were always such, in all cities, attentive to the directions of shifting winds.
“Proscription lists had been prepared,” said another.
I shuddered.
“It was safer to be in the blue of a Cosian regular,” laughed a man, “than in the satin robes of traitors.”
I feared then for Talena, arrogant traitress, puppet Ubara, occupant of the throne on the sufferance of invaders, sullier of her Home Stone.
Marlenus had returned!
“We awakened at dawn,” said a man, “startled, bewildered, to the ringing of the great bar, and rushed into the streets, to be met with steel and stones. They swarmed from everywhere, struck from everywhere. An arsenal had been seized. The cry of battle, ‘For Glorious Ar,’ was all about us. We cut down what we could, but they were everywhere, screaming, rushing at us. A fellow would kill two, and have his throat cut by a third.”
“We were outnumbered, dozens to one,” said a man.
“They were maddened, merciless,” said another. “Like starving blood-maddened sleen!”
“They had planned well,” said another. “A thousand avenues of escape were closed, even to the spilling of walls into the streets. We lost many, surmounting such obstacles, fighting our way toward the open.”
“Luckily,” said another, “much of the walling of Ar had been earlier dismantled by her own citizens, or we might have been unable to reach the fields, the marshes, the Viktel Aria.”
“What of Myron,” I asked, “his troops?”
“He was drunk in his tent,” said another, bitterly.
“Many of his troops,” said another, “those of the mercenary captains, given the emptying of Ar, and the lessening of loot, had deserted.”
“There were regulars, surely,” I said.
“Too few,” said another man. “It had been thought that Ar was pacified, that she required little attention, that the propaganda of Tyros and Cos had done its work, weakening and confusing Ar, dividing her and turning her against herself. Many troops had been recalled to the island ubarates themselves, others to the Cosian principalities on the Vosk.”
“They did engage,” said another man, “but not as they would have preferred. They had little time to form, as enraged thousands, many now armed with captured weapons, rushed forth from the city to deal with them.”
Commonly a large Gorean military camp is square, or rectangular. It is carefully laid out, and is usually severally gated, which allows for the issuance of forces from the interior in a variety of manners. Too, it is ditched, and palisaded, with lookout towers at the corners of the palisade. Watches are routinely maintained, and not unoften patrols reconnoiter the locality. I recalled, however, from when I had been last in Ar, that many of these provisions had not been supplied by the polemarkos. Though Myron had had his weaknesses, for paga, and, occasionally, for a slave, he was not a poor officer. The nonfortifying of the camp had been deliberate, a part of the charade that Tyros, Cos, and their allies, had come to Ar not as conquerors but as liberators.
“We soon heard,” said one of the men on the beach, “that a banner had been unfurled.”
“And that Marlenus had returned,” said another.
“That broke the spirit of hundreds,” said another.
It is interesting, I thought, what may be the effect of will, and a given leader, on a course of events, how such things, will and a given leader, as though by magic, can generate storms, can shake the earth, may turn even urts into larls, jards to tarns.
How does the leader know this will occur, I wondered. Or does he know?
“Hundreds escaped with their lives,” said a man.
“And thousands did not,” said another.
“The streets of Ar ran with blood,” said a fellow. “Traitors, hundreds, gathered together from the proscription lists, were taken outside the city and impaled.”
“The great road, the Viktel Aria, was lined, on both sides, for pasangs, with the bound, squirming, whimpering bodies,” said a man.
I nodded.
The vengeance of a Marlenus, I knew, would be a frightful thing.
“Many bodies were hurled, like beasts, into the marshes, for tharlarion,” said a fellow.
“Or into carnariums,” said another.
These were deep pits outside the city, used for the disposal of filth, of garbage, and such. Occasionally a new one was dug, and an old one covered over. Occasionally one was opened, even generations after its closure, that it might be reused, and the lingering stench might still overcome even a strong man. Usually these pits were tended by male slaves, with shovels, with the lower parts of their faces wrapped in scarves.
“The walls of Ar,” I said, “are doubtless being rebuilt.”
I must not make my serious concerns too obvious.
“With soaring hearts and singing,” said a fellow.
“And the flute girls who so tormented and mocked the earlier dismantlers of the walls?” I asked.
“Collared, naked, sweating, under the lash,” said a fellow, “they now struggle to bear stones to the builders.”
“They will be distributed later, as officers deem fit,” said another.
“Excellent,” I said.
I tried to keep my voice steady.
“And what of Talena?” I asked.
“A great price has been put upon her head,” said a fellow.
“Ten thousand tarns of gold,” said a fellow.
“Tarn disks of double weight,” said another.
“Then she escaped the city,” I said. “She has not been captured.”
“You seem pleased,” said a man.
“He is a bounty hunter,” laughed a fellow.
“You will not have much of a chance to get your capture rope on her,” said another.
“Every bounty hunter on Gor will seek her,” said another.
“Where would she go? How would she escape capture?” asked another. “I wager she is already captured, and her hunter is pondering how he might get her safely to Ar.”
“He may be negotiating for a better price, even now,” said another.
“Perhaps she was concealed, and sped to Cos,” I said. “Surely they owe her much. She did them much service.”
“Ar has risen,” said a man. “If she is in Cos, Lurius will deliver her to Marlenus as a peace offering, as a sign of reconciliation and proposed amity.”