Tribesmen of Gor by John Norman Page A

gate!" called a man, pounding from our side. We heard the heavy bar thrust up, and then creak, rotating, on its four-inch-thick pin. Four men, from our side, pushed open the gate. The crowd in the courtyard stood back, in a circle. Torches were lifted as men looked to the stones of the courtyard. My eyes examined the heights of the walls, the adjoining roofs. Then I, too, gave my attention to the stones of the courtyard.
          Eleven men lay there, and parts of men.
    "What could have done this," whispered a man.
    I wondered if any had escaped. I doubted it.
           The heads of four of the men had been torn from them; the heads of two others had been half bitten from them; one man's throat looked as though it had been struck twice with parallel hatchets; I was familiar with the spacing of the wounds; two men had lost arms, one a leg; one of the men without an arm had been disemboweled; there was also the print of jaws in his shoulder; I was familiar with this sort of thing; I had seen it often enough in Torvaldsland; the man is seized about the neck and shoulders and held, while the squat, powerful, clawed hind feet rip at the lower abdomen; twenty feet of gut was scattered in the blood and robes, like wet, red-spattered rope; the man who had lost a leg had had his spine bitten through; I could see the stomach from the back; the other man who had had an arm torn from him, too, had been half eaten, ribs erupted from the chest cavity; the heart and the left lung were missing; the eleventh man had been the most cleanly killed; about his throat, on the sides, were six black, circular bruises, like rope marks; his head hung to one side; the back of his neck had been bitten through.
    I looked again to the walls, the roofs about the courtyard. "What could have done this?" asked a man.
           I turned and left the courtyard. Beside the two men in the street, who had lasted my scimitar, were gathered several townsfolk of Tor.
    I looked down on the two bodies. "Do you know them?" I asked a man.
    "Yes," he said, "Tek and Saud, men of Zev Mahmoud." "They will kill no more," said a man.
           "At what place might I expect to find the noble Zev Mahmoud?" I inquired.
    "He and his men are often to be found at the Cafe of the Six Chains," said the man. He grinned.
    "My thanks, Citizen," said I.
           I wiped my blade on the burnoose of one of the fallen men, and resheathed it.
          Looking up, I saw, hurrying toward us, carrying a torch, the small water carrier I had encountered several times. He looked up at me. "Did you see?" he asked. His face was white. "It was horrible," he said. He trembled.
          "I saw," I said.
           I pointed to the two men in the street. "Do you know these men?" I asked.
          He peered at them closely. "No," he said. "They are strangers in Tor."
          "Is it not late to carry water?" I asked him.
          "I am not carrying water, Master," he said.

      "How is it that you are in this district." I asked.
           "I live but a short way from here," he said. Then he left, bowing, carrying the torch.
           I looked at the man to whom I had spoken earlier. "Does he live near here?" I asked.
          "No," said the man, "he lives by the east gate, near the shearing pens for verr."
          "Do you know him?" I asked.
          "He is well known in Tor," said the man.
          "And who is he?" I asked.
          "The water carrier Abdul," said the man.
          "My thanks, Citizen," said I.
     
          "Zev Mahmoud?" I asked.
          The heavily built man in the kaffiyeh and agal looked up, angry, then turned white.
          The point of the scimitar was at his throat.
           "Into the street," I told him. I looked at the two other men, who sat, cross-legged, about the small table, with him. I gestured with my head. "Into the street," I told them.
          "There are three of us," said Zev