Nomads of Gor by John Norman

Ubar."
      I gathered from this remark that Kamchak was a man of
      no little importance among the Tuchuks.
      "There arc a hundred wagons in the personal household of
      Kutaituchik," said Kamchak. 'No be of any of these wagons
      is to be of the First Wagon."
      "I see," I said. 'And the girl she on the kaiila is
      perhaps the daughter of Kutaituchik, Ubar of the Tuchuks?"
      "No," said Kamchak. "She is unrelated to him, as are most
      in the First Wagon."
      "She seemed much different than the other Tuchuk wom-
      en," I said.
      Kamchak laughed, the colored scars wrinkling on his
      broad face. "Of course," said Kamchak, "she has been raised
      to be fit prize in the games of Love and War."
      "I do not understand," I said.
      Did you not see the Plains of a Thousand Stakes?" asked
      Kamchak.
      "No," I said. ''I did not."
      I was about to press Kamchak on this matter when we
      heard a sudden shout and the squealing of kaiila from among
      the wagons. I heard then the shouts of men and the cues of
      women and children. Kamchak lifted his head intently, listen-
      ng, Then we heard the pounding of a small drain and No
      blasts on the horn of a bask.
      Kamchak read the message of the drum and horn.
      "A prisoner has been brought to the camp," he said.
          Kamchak strode among the wagons, toward the sound,
          and I followed him closely. Many others, too, rushed to the
          sound, and we were jostled by armed warriors, scarred and
          fierce; by boys with unscarred faces, carrying the pointed
          sticks used often for goading the wagon bask; by leather-clad
          women hurrying from the cooking pots; by wild, half-clothed
          children; even by enslaved Kajir-clad beauties of Turia; even
          the girl was there who wore but bells and collar, struggling
          under her burden, long dried strips of bask meat, as wide as
          beams, she too hurrying to see what might be the meaning
          of the drum and horn, of the shouting Tuchuks.
          We suddenly emerged into the center of what seemed to
          be a wide, grassy street among the wagons, a wide lane, open
          and level, an avenue in that city of Harigga, or Bask Wagons.
          The street was lined by throngs of Tuchuks and slaves.
          Among them, too, were soothsayers and haruspexes, and
          singers and musicians, and, here and there, small peddlers
          and merchants, of various cities, for such are occasionally
          permitted by the Tuchuks, who crave their wares, to ap-
           proach the wagons. Each of these, I was later to learn, wore
          on his forearm a tiny brand, in the form of spreading bask
          horns, which guaranteed his passage, at certain seasons,
          across the plains of the Wagon Peoples. The difficulty, of
          course is in first obtaining the brand. If, in the case of a
          singer, the song is rejected, or in the case of a merchant, his
          merchandise is rejected, he is slain out of hand. This accept-
          ance brand, of course, carries with it a certain stain of
    ignominy, suggesting that those who approach the wagons do as slaves.
    Now I could see down the wide, grassy lane, loping
    towards us, two kaiila and riders. A lance was fastened
    between them, fixed to the stirrups of their saddles. The lance
    cleared the ground, given the height of the kaiila, by about
    five feet. Between the two animate, stumbling desperately, her
    throat bound by leather thongs to the lance behind her neck,
    ran a girl, her wrists tied behind her back.
    I was astonished, for this girl was dressed not as a Gorean,
    not as a girl of any of the cities of the Counter-Earth, not as
    a peasant of the Sa-Tarna Belds or the vineyards where the
    Ta grapes are raised, not even as a girl of the fierce Wagon
    Peoples.
    Kamchak stepped to the center of the grassy