The Third Expedition

Ancient City of Ruins, on the shores of Lake Shaba

The nightmare had become manifest.

The horde of Kurii, the dreaded near-legendary Others, rampaged through the shattered remains of the castle's main gates. The half-sentient beasts yelled and roared in victory as they overran the courtyard, shambling forth using their front paws, and penetrated the inner-sanctum of the former stronghold.

Their physical characteristics made them a formidable enemy. Towering to seven feet or more, shaggy coated, double-rowed teeth and long fanged, six-digit paws with opposable thumbs and sharp clawed. The typical Kur is an intelligent self-aware entity who is descended from a technologically advanced civilization alien to the Solar System. This is the so-called 'Ship-Kur'. The degenerate form of the species, born on Gor from ship-wrecked ancestors, is feral, possessing low-intelligence, bestial to the extreme and ill-adapted to the Gorean biosphere. However, all Kurii are enthusiastic hunters of Man.

:.

In the high room of the castle's tower, Ubar Mwindu had been barricaded with his last handful of surviving askaris, Inlander warriors. At dusk, when the Kurii had attacked, nine hundred men had defended its walls. Now, just after Dawn, only the Holding's general and three of his officers remained alive.

A few slave girls were huddled in the chambers as well. Among them was the ubar's First-girl, Mai. Her outward unruffled serenity and immaculate appearance was at odds with the dire circumstances. However, the First-girl's calm wasn't because she was ignorant of her predicament. Mai full knew what it meant to fall into the merciless paws of the Kurii. The horrific beasts did not enslave humans. They treated Man as prey. If taken alive, Mai knew she would meet her end as raw living food.

But, she was First-kijakazi to the Mfalme and was not permitted panic.

As the monsters pounded on the chamber door, kneeling calmly by her master's sleep couch where the ubar lay, the slave girl held one hand to his side, pressing a thick bandage against the fresh gash of a wound she knew was mortal. Mai could feel the hot blood seep through the bandage, heating the palm and fingers of her hand. The copper-skinned almond-eyed exotic slave did not fear death, Mai had determined that since it was apparent her master was to die then she was prepared to do so as well. What good was living without her Maulana, her true love-master?

In one of his own hands was a stylus with which the luckless mfalme wrote a brief note, rapidly, his lips scowling as he endured the searing pain of the fatal Kur claw wound. "Mai," he called. The power gone from his normally robust voice.

"Eeh, Maulana yangu."

"You'll wear a message collar. You're to go with General Aminifu on the last tarn. The way to the roof is yet clear. If you become separated from Aminifu the message is for either Master Black Ox of Schendi or Master Rigorus of Port Kar, whichever you reach first. Do you understand?"

"Eeh, Maulana." Her husky voice was measured and level, as if they were discussing the weather.

"Good."

The upland Jungle ubar gestured to an askari that the message collar be attached to Mai's elegant throat. The work was done quickly as the continued Kurii assault on the stout tropical hardwood door produced a series of brittle splintering sounds. Mai knew the thick panel would soon give way.

"Enda," Mwindu said, looking at Mai. His deep brown eyes full of pain, yet also full of the love he felt for the unique slave.

She lifted her long nightwing lashes from her copper cheeks and took a last lingering look at the man who owned her heart and everything else about her. "Eeh, habibu Maulana."

There was much more she would have said, but she'd been given an order by Maulana. Enda, go. Mai went.

As General Aminifu and the last of the kajirae climbed a rope-ladder to the safety of the roof and the awaiting basket carrying tarn, the mfalme grunted to the remaining knot of askaris, "Help me to stand brothers. I believe I'll meet Death on my feet, facing it. But, I'll need to borrow a knife. I seem how've mislaid mine."

:.

Shark's Cove, somewhere along the Sub- Equatorial Coast

The girl was issued into his presence just after he'd finished his first-meal. Rigorus never transacted affairs of the Holding until after breakfast.

The mfalme appraised the slave as he dipped his long fingers into the golden finger-bowl on his low table, cleaning them, then dried them on a linen towel handed to him by a kijakazi. To say that the slave girl brought before him was in a severe state of disrepair would be to put it mildly. He noted the scuffed and marred leather of the message collar around her throat.

"What is this about," he asked the askari who stood over the kneeling girl. The mfalme of Sharks Cove didn't normally deal with slave-matters, that was what the Free Woman housekeeper and the First-girl were for.

"This kijakazi rowed a canoe to the household dock, just after Dawn. She claims to belong to a friend of yours, Mfalme."

"Oh?" Rigorus raised a mildly inquisitive brow. "Who?"

The askari nudged the girl's outer-thigh, prompting her to answer.

"Maulana Mwindu, if you please, Maulana."

The Holding Ubar's gaze sharpened on the slave. "What of him, girl?"

"He is dead, Maulana. Killed by Kurii. Cause great sadness. He commanded Mai to bring message to you. That is why Mai leave Maulana yangu's side. Only by his command."

"I'm sure of it, little one," Rigorus said, not unkindly. He knew of Mai by reputation. "Go on."

"Eeh, Maulana. Mai travel to Schendi with General Aminifu. He thought to find Maulana Black Ox there. But Maulana Black Ox exiled now from Schendi, for destroying rival Slaver House. Maulana Aminifu fall ill, fever. He die. More sadness. Mai continue on alone. Go to Port Kar, told Maulana Rigorus now in tropics. Mai turn around and come back down coast. Mai find you."

Rigorus looked down at the girl, astonished at her tale. "You've done some traveling."

"Eeh, Maulana. More than a year."

"And escaped being recollared to boot. I'm impressed, kijakazi. Ehh."

Rigorus picked up a fruit knife from the tray with the remains of his breakfast, he leaned forward and cut the thin-wire stitches of the collar. He put down the knife and opened the collar, taking the piece of stained rence paper out of the folded leather. The message was short and to the point.

Brother, avenge me.

:.

Port of Schendi, Sub-Equatorial Belt

"What do you know of the Ancient City of Ruins?" The Scribe Hanson asked his woman, as he sat down to his evening meal.

"The Ancient City would appear to be accursed," his free companion, Lyrissa, answered. "The two expeditions to that place resulted in the death of both their leaders and the failure of all their efforts."

"Well, there's a rich man, some retired Karian admiral, willing to pay gold to have male slaves shipped east to help reclaim the city from the wilderness. Men who invest gold in a place rarely believe it's cursed."

Lyrissa looked up from her bowl of fish soup across the low table to her mate. "And why, my own true love, does the subject hold your interest?"

Hanson gave a boyish grin. "Because, my adored one, the rich Karian is also hiring Scribes."

"Oh? And why is that?"

"He's looking for experts on ants."

Lyrissa raised an interested eyebrow. "Indeed?" For her field of study happened to be insects.

::

Rigorus Holding, at Lake Shaba, Jungle Upcountry

The humid and heavy air of the newly resurrected kraal reeked of its recent construction.

There was the smell of fresh plaster, mortar, grout, the scent of raw wood and sawdust. There was also a good bit of hammering, sawing, the atmosphere was alive with the ring and pound of the metalworkers, with the lusty curses of the laborers as well, toiling in the tropical heat. In the thick of it, sweating alongside the others, was Rigorus himself.

He was intent on finishing the major work on the walled keep before the worst of the season's rains were upon them. In the Jungle it rained every single day, thus its alternate name, Rainforest. But, when the hard rains came the air would be miserable with oppressive humidity and strenuous work would be foolish for more than anything but short exertion. The storms were only weeks, perhaps merely days, away.

A tall slave girl with fiercely red hair and eyes of clarified emerald green, bearing a yoke with water botas at either end across her shoulders, came carefully up the bamboo scaffolding along the interior east wall. The girl's freckled skin was slick with sweat. Rigorus saw the kijakazi and straightened from hammering down his section of stairs leading to the keep's third level, his private chambers. He took one of the bags of water into his big hands, squeezing the wet leather and drinking his fill from the unstopped spout. The plain catchment water tasted good in the heat, cooling his throat. He restopped the bag and wiped sweat from his dark eyes with a rag from his loincloth's belt.

"Asante, kijakazi. What's your name?"

"Falarina, if it pleases you, mighty Maulana."

"Eeh, girl, it pleases me well enough."

The girl smiled, beaming with pleasure that the great Mfalme himself should recognize her presence, to actually thank her. She blushed deeply and Rigorus laughed, resisting the temptation to smack her loin-cloth covered ass. The smack might throw her off-balance and upset the botas. There were many other thirsty men about. Instead, he gave her a wink and turned back to his task.

::

The thunder spoke with a god's authority, dragging him up from sleep. Lightning strobed the black sky and lit his chambers a harsh white glare, temporarily blinding Rigorus just as he opened his eyes. "By Thassa's soggy tits," he cursed, squinting as the after image of the lightning bolt seared behind his eyelids.

"Son of a whore," he cursed again, sitting up on the white larl pelt but not standing. He waited for his sight to return.

"Maulana?"

The voice came soft, carrying a quality of fragile vulnerability, yet, at once also possessing a husky worldliness. It was the voice of the slave girl, Mai, who slept by her new master on the fur.

"All is well, haba," he grunted. "Just the storm. Go back to sleep. Kulala."

"Eeh, Maulana."

He heard her settle back on the luxurious nap of the big larl pelt. By and by his sight returned. The mfalme stood and made his way to the chamber pot, relieving his bladder into the tall vessel before recovering it with its ornate lid. He then washed his hands and penis-glans in a toilet lever, drying his hands on a cloth from the pile beside the basin.

The kraal, the walled keep as Northern Goreans might call it, the Kasbah to a Taharian, was finished. The three foot thick walls around three sides of the courtyard rose sixty feet high. The three level residential tower another thirty feet.

The storm raged around the kraal's high keep as Rigorus opened the sliding door and stepped out onto the wet stones of his chamber's balcony. The howling winds dashed hard rain stingingly against his naked skin as he stepped to the terrace's black iron railing and looked out into the savage night. He saw nothing but the sheeting rain in the yellow light of ship lanterns secured to the outer walls. He gripped the railing against the shove of the strong winds.

The high stone platform on which he stood rose almost ninety feet above the shore of the great Lake Shaba. Over the roaring of the driving rain, between the great growls of the thunder, the mfalme could hear the disturbed waves of the lake smacking ashore as the winds of the tempest violently stirred it waters. Shaba was so vast that its waters and animal-life behaved more as marine than as fresh water denizens. In all but name it was actually a fresh-water sea, even hosting tides. As a benefit of his Sardar education, Rigorus knew the same was true of a couple of Earth's great equatorial lakes.

He turned his face into the spray of the storm.

The heavy rains had arrived and with them, safety. The Kurii would not attack during the rains, even if they were aware of the new human settlement, which Rigorus doubted.

They'll become aware of us soon enough, he thought. If nothing else, they'll eventually catch scent of the settlement's herds.

The Kurii were never far from the mfalme's mind. In fact, he had timed the arrival of the expedition with the seasonal storms just before them, counting on the severe weather as a natural defense in case the rebuilding had lagged behind schedule.

They'll wait until the storms are over, he thought again to himself.

That gave Rigorus about four months to completely prepare his campaign against the beasts who had killed Mwindu, a man he thought of as closer than a brother.

He found his grip slipping against the wet iron of the railing. The winds were growing fiercer. The mfalme decided it was time to return to the furs and the body-warmth of the slave girl.

:.

Within ihn of the start of their assault, the golden hith gates of the kraal fell before the Kurii.

It was the Jit-monkeys who had sounded the first alarm.

Prompted by their natural cycle, the Kurii emerge from their dens at Dusk to hunt, just as the nocturnal Jit-monkeys were also rising to greet the fall of Night. And, for time out of mind, the Jits had welcomed each fresh darkness with a riotous chatter which screeched through the lower branches of the vast Jungle's shadowed canopy. There was a familiarity to the sound of the monkeys awakening, just as there is a known pace to the voice of birds in early morning as they stir from their nests.

But the expected flow of the grouchy chatter quickly turned into cries of alarm among the Jits.

Clearly, something unsavory was moving through the deepening shadows beneath the trees toward the kraal. Something the monkeys wanted no part of. The very warnings of the Jits grew quickly distant as they fled the vicinity, ripping leaves from the branches in their panicked haste. Remembering, no doubt, urgent business in another part of the forest.

The Kurii were on the march. They were led by he who was called Scarside.

Scarside knew nothing of his race's glorious past. The creature could not count beyond the number of fore digits and rear digits of his paws, but he knew he had been preying on Man for the passage of many rainy seasons. Ever since the battle in the cold lairs, when he had followed a Ship-Kur in an assault on a group of humans who possessed an object the Ship-Kur had wanted very much.

The object had been found and taken, on that distant day, the Kurii had withdrawn after both suffering and dealing out heavy losses. Then the inexplicable had occurred. The object, the ring, the Ship-Kur had organized the wild bands of Kurii to help him obtain had blown up. Its explosion had set the green Jungle on fire. Scarside had survived only because he was nearly half a pasang away from the ring holder when it happened. Even so, he'd gotten a new name after that day from the wounds he'd survived from flying debris which had pockmarked his left side, permanently burning away his fur in large patches. He was one of only a few survivors of the blast.

Since that time, so long ago, Scarside had waged war on humans. Talunas, the cannibalistic Mamba-people, the Pygmies, the various lake and river-tribes, he did not distinguish. They were all meat, tasty long-pork. And after so many years of village-raids and slaughter he had become an excellent general. He'd proven that by taking a fully manned castle and reducing it to an empty shell, to another cold lair. Long had been the feasts on man-meat when the castle had fallen. Great had grown his status.

If there were such a thing among feral Kurii as a ubar then Scarside had earned the title.

And now, the castle rebuilt. More man-meat. He bellowed, exhorting his troops to press forward as the mangled gate was trampled beneath his paws.

:.

Mai knelt in nadu and existed within a sphere of utter calm.

The girl appreciated the irony that once more she found herself potential Kurii food. It was proof positive to her that the Universe had a perverse sense of humor.

At the end of the rains, Maulana Rigorus had sent most of the kraal's workers and slaves to the Holdings' garden retreat, deep in the Ancient City. The walls around the retreat were ninety feet high. There was no gate in the wall. The only way in and out was by tarn.

With the main body of the Holding at the retreat, since the storms had ended, the kraal had been operating on a skeletal staff, on constant alert. The herd animals remained and a semblance of routine was maintained.

Then the scream of the Jits.

At the first sound of alarm, the rest of the workers and slaves had been sent to safety in tarn baskets. But Rigorus, his askari escort, General Predatori and Mai had stayed. The mfalme had declared he wouldn't miss the Kurii attack for all the tea in Bazi. Then he'd ordered wine to be brought.

Mai felt a trickle of sweat bead at her right temple and run down the side of her face. It was a hot night, unusually humid. A little perspiration was understandable. That, and the Kurii could be heard rampaging outside the main gates of the Kraal. The gold-plated decorative steel hith gates screeching under the assault.

"Mai," Rigorus called out. "Come."

"Eeh, Maulana." She rose seamlessly from her knees to a standing position, back straight, breasts out, shoulders squared. On the balls of her feet she approached her master, on his left. She stopped three steps from him.

Rigorus held his favorite drinking vessel, an embossed three-footed metal bowl. There was palm wine in it. He smiled, seeming in very good spirits for a man whose keep appeared in imminent danger of falling.

An askari opened the door to the mfalme's chambers and Rigorus went through the portal, followed by Mai, General Predatori, then the escorting askaris.

Madness to remain, Mai thought. The mfalme must be insane.

It was a heretical thought, but it was the only reason Mai could think of for his outlandish behavior. And here they all were leaving what scant safety might be found behind bolted doors on the upper level to actually draw closer to the invading beasts.

Still, insane or not, Mfalme Rigorus was her now her maulana and she was kijakazi. So she followed.

The small group descended the private stairway leading down to the second level. The slave girl heard the squeal and protest of the gates reaching an anguished metallic wail before they were sundered by the savage invaders. The horde bellowed in exaltation as it hurtled into the courtyard, a shambling mass of dozens of roaring Kurii, just as the mfalme's group stepped down to the second landing and could look out the great open atrium down into the walled courtyard. The vast space seemed to seethe with dark hairy forms.

Rigorus laughed.

The expression was not a bravado laugh in the face of Death or a spit in its eye, but rather an amused bark of honest mirth. He drank from his cup, his dark gaze looking down at the Kurii as they made for the stairs which lead up from the courtyard to the second level where he stood.

Miserable, but showing no outward sign of it, Mai sank into nadu beside her standing maulana. At least it would be over soon. The beasts had only to come up the stairs and get them. A flare of anger, that she wasted all the previous year of arduous effort to reach Rigorus, only to have this tragic end because of an egotistic fool.

Because her heart was kajira, Mai immediately regretted the thought. A master, particularly a mfalme, was always right.

There came the sound of wood splintering. It prompted the memory of the battering in of her maulana's door the year before. Mai closed her eyes. There was the smallest of peeps from her lips. Again, she knew shame. She had expressed herself without permission.