Tribesmen of Gor by John Norman

the inscription and, thereafter, had died in the desert. Towers of steel do not figure in the hallucinations, the delusions of the desert mad. Their delusions are influenced by wish-fulfillment; they involve water. Moreover, they are not likely to take the time to inscribe messages on rocks. Something had driven the man over the desert, something he had to tell. He had been, apparently, a raider. But yet, for some reason, he had fought his way, presumably eventually on foot, dying, through the desert, toward civilization, to warn someone, or something, of a steel tower. I did not doubt there was such a tower. On the other hand, I would have little or no chance of finding it by striking blindly out into the desert. I would have to make contact with nomads, and others, hoping eventually to find one who had heard of, or knew of, the tower. If it were in the dune country, removed from eases and caravan trails, of course, few, if any, might have seen it. Yet, I did not doubt that at least one man had seen it, he who had made the inscription, who had died near it, whose body had been dried, blackened, by the sun.
           The streets of Tor were dark. Sometimes they were steep; often they were narrow and crooked. Sometimes I felt my way by touching a wall. Some places a small lamp burned, high, near a doorway.
          I thought I heard a step behind me. I threw back the burnoose, unsheathed the scimitar. I waited.
          I heard nothing more.
           I pressed on through the streets. No more did I hear a step behind me.
          I looked back, the streets were dark.
          I think I was not more than a half pasang from my compartment when, approaching an opened gate, some forty yards ahead, lit by torches in walls, I stopped.
          It was a small courtyard, through which it was my intention to pass.
           I saw the shadow, furtive, dart back behind one of the two halves of the gate.
           At the same time I heard the movements of men behind me. There were five of them.
           I felled the first. I felled the second. I caught the scimitars of three on my blade and leaped back. They separated, intelligently, and, crouching, edged toward me. I backed away, crouching. I hoped to draw the center man forward, to where he might, if I should move to the right, block the man on his own right, or if I moved to the left, block the man on his own left. But he hung back, the two on the sides creeping forward. Whichever man I attacked need only defend himself; the other two would have a free instant, that of his defense, to make their own strokes. These men were not common street thieves.
           Suddenly the three men stopped. I tensed. One man threw down his scimitar. All three of them turned and fled.
           Behind me I heard the doors of the courtyard swing shut. I heard the beam, locking it, fall in place.
           I turned. I could see nothing for the closed gate. The torches, high on the walls of the courtyard, flickered, casting pools of yellow light on the plaster walls.
           Then I heard a human scream of horror from the other side of the gate.
           I did not know at that time how many men were waiting in the courtyard. I do not think any of them escaped.
           I waited, scimitar drawn, outside the closed gate of the courtyard.
          High above, in a wall to my right, a light appeared. "What is going on?" cried a man.
           Lights appeared in others of the high, narrow windows. I saw men looking out. I saw one woman, holding her veil to her face, peering out.
           In what could not have been more than two or three Ehn, men, carrying torches, some of them lamps, emerged into the street. We could hear, too, men on the other side of the courtyard. Within the courtyard we then heard men moving. I heard a woman scream. I could see movement, and torches, in the vertical thread of space between the two halves of the gate.
    "Open the