Little Wars
The Slave Wars, incidentally, might be compared with the Kaiila Wars of the southern hemisphere. In the latter wars, fought among factions of the Wagon Peoples, the object, or principal object, was apparently the acquisition of the lofty, silken kaiila, the common mount of the Wagon Peoples. In those wars, as I understand it, the acquisition of female slaves was almost an afterthought, ropes being put on the necks of captured women, who were then, stripped, herded back with the captured kaiila to the wagons of the victors. To be sure, it did not take the Wagon Peoples long to learn the many exquisite pleasures attendant upon owning beautiful slaves.With the unification of the Wagon Peoples under a Ubar San, Kamchak, of the Tuchuks, it is my impression that the riders of the swift kaiila now seldom ply their depredations against their own kind. Rather do they roam afield. It is said not a woman is safe within a thousand pasangs of the wagons. I would think that a very conservative estimate. Raiding parties of the Wagon Peoples have been reported as far north as Venna. Some claim to have seen them even in the vicinity of the Sardar. (Vagabonds of Gor)
Kurt the Kassar, still perched high upon his mount, turned and fled in the end.
"I bet this is the Year The Kassar Pissed in His Saddle!" I led the rabble rousing laughter after mimicking a vulo flapping its wings, as several Tuchuks watched the Kassar flee from the midst of our wagons. They'd not know the reason why I danced around upon one foot, was because the fellow came damn close to severing my Achille's tendon. He'd said I wasn't lucky not a few ehn earlier. I sure felt lucky! But hell if I'd ever admit that to another living soul! Not even Necessity had been allowed to witness, for he'd been tightly tethered and forced with his snout pointed to the ground the entire time.
Before he left, I had watched him reach slowly down and brush his fingers over the haft of his one blade the very same second I'd thrown two at him. One from each of my hands. One lodged in the toe of his boot, before he groaned and tugged it loose, only to throw it right back at me. He narrowly missed severing the tendon behind my ankle and struck the softer flesh beneath the joint instead. Yet I'd hurled two more quivas back at him as he'd finally managed to unsheath his own quiva. One landed with a thud, deeply imbedded in the man's saddle, while the other struck his hand and knocked his weapon right out of his grip.
Kurt wheeled around on his beast and rode off suddenly, leaving Sakmeta to cry out with bitterness over the fact that Kurt had come to steal the Singer rather than the Bead Maker. I have the strangest feeling that I still have not seen the last of him before I meet him on the Field of a Thousand Stakes.
By then Necessity was huffing and puffing and making a ruckus. Moreso because he'd been forced to stare at the ground the entire time during the quarrels, which had somehow transferred from men... to Sakmeta's outbursts and accusations. And finally my own when she insisted upon trying to be my mother again!
You just cannot tell that woman 'NO!' enough times. I think she doesn't hear the word at all. "I am not hurt! It's only a scratch!!" Many Tuchuk men die from the wounding of their Courage Scars. And bravely too! I think... I shall not keel over from the scratch of a Kassar's poor aim!
