Ubar’s dream

In the Chamber of the Ubar, high in Ven'dara -

Ubar Ortossi sleeps, and does not sleep easily.

He stands not on the marble of his palace, but on black loam. The air is cold, too cold for the month. Above him, the trees of the North Forest rise like the pillars of a temple that has no roof - great Tur trees, their trunks wide as tarn cages, their canopy so thick the sun of Gor is broken into only spears of light.

There is no sound of the city. No clash of steel in the practice yard, no cry of vendors below the walls of Ven'dara.

Only wind in the high branches. And something else moving under it.

He is Ubar, and wears no crown in the dream, but the simple gray of a hunter. His sword is at his side, unsheathed. The moss beneath his boots is deep, and holds his footprints.

From the north, deeper in the forest, smoke rises - not the smoke of a campfire, but of many fires. A thin, dark line against the green-black. And with it, on the wind, the howl of a larl, far off.

A tarn cries once overhead, but cannot be seen through the leaves. A shadow passes over the spears of light.

Ortossi would move toward the smoke, as an Ubar must, to see what force camps at the edge of his holdings - but the forest will not let him. Vines curl about his ankles, not tight, but insistent. The trees themselves seem to lean.

Then he sees them - footprints in the moss before him that are not his own. Bare, light, quick. Many of them. Going north. And beside them, the heavy print of a sleen.

He wakes, as Ubars do, with his hand already on the hilt of his blade.

The lamp is still burning in the chamber. Outside, Ven'dara sleeps. To the north, beyond the walls, beyond the farmed fields, the North Forest is dark, as it has always been.

But the dream of cold loam remains on his boots.

The order is given before the morning meal.

You do not summon the full Council. An Ubar does not wake a city for a dream - not yet. You summon only Tormas, Captain of your Scouts.

Tormas is a lean man of the northern villages, his face seamed from winters in Torvaldsland. He kneels.

"Ubar."

"Three men," you say. "No more. Light. No tarn. They go on foot to the eaves of the North Forest, to the place where the Tur trees grow thickest, two pasangs beyond the Old Stone Bridge. They do not enter deep."

Tormas nods. He knows the Forest. No true Goreans enter deep.

"They look for smoke. For camps. For the prints of many feet, and for sleen. They watch, they do not make contact. They return in two days, or not at all."

"And if they find panther women, Ubar?" he asks, quietly. "Or outlaws?"

"Then they will have found why I dreamed."

Tormas strikes his fist to his chest.

By midday, they are gone.

Three scouts - Jost, Harl, and young Varro who can run like a tabuk - slip from the north gate of Ven'dara in hunters' green and brown, bows unstrung across their backs, short swords at their belts. No banner. No cry.

The people of the city see nothing but three hunters leaving for game.

Now you wait.

The Forest is two days north. The answer will be two days returning.

In the palace, the High Council will ask why the northern patrols have been doubled.

The second night, Ubar.

You did not will it, but the dream returns - as if the North Forest itself has not finished speaking to you.

You are back in the loam.

It is the same place. The Tur trees. The spears of light. But now it is later. The light is failing.

The smoke you saw from afar yesterday is closer. You can smell it now - woodsmoke, and the sour smell of a camp left too long.

You move forward. The vines no longer hold you. Your boots make no sound in the moss.

You come to a clearing that should not be there. No Gorean axe has cut the North Forest here for a hundred years, yet the trees are felled. Stumps, still weeping sap. A dozen shelters of branches and hides. Cold fire pits.

And in the center of the clearing - a standard, planted in the earth.

Not the standard of panther girls. Not the rag of outlaws.

A banner of dark green, with a sigil you do not know: a white talon.

The footprints are everywhere now. Not bare feet. Booted feet. Many men. Moving in order, like soldiers. They came from the north, deeper in the Forest. They are going south.

Toward Ven'dara.

You kneel to touch one print, and the loam is still warm.

Then, from the trees behind you, a sound - a twig snapping. You turn, hand to your sword -

And you wake.

Your chamber is cold. The lamp has burned low. Outside your window, to the far north, there is no smoke to be seen. Yet.

Tormas's scouts have been gone one day. They have one more day before they are due to return.

Do you, Ubar Ortossi, hold this second dream to yourself until the scouts speak, or do you wake the Caste of Initiates to have them read this banner of the white talon?

You do not ring the great bell. That would wake the city.

You send your personal guard - two men of your own Homestone, who would not question you - down to the lower city, to the whitewashed temple of the Initiates.

The Caste of Initiates does not love to be woken.

High Initiate Barus comes. He is old, older than you, Ubar, his head shaved, his white robes simple, his eyes the pale blue of a man who looks too long at the sky waiting for signs from the Priest-Kings. He carries no torch - Initiates will not bear fire at night, for fire belongs to the day.

He enters your chamber alone. He does not kneel. Initiates kneel to no Ubar.

"You dreamed," he says. It is not a question.

"I dreamed twice," you say. "Of the North Forest. Of felled trees. Of many booted feet coming south. And of a banner - dark green, with a white talon."

Barus is silent for a long time. He goes to your balcony, looks north, where the Forest is a black line against the stars. Priest-Kings' lights move there, distant and cold.

"The North Forest is forbidden for good reason, Ortossi," he whispers. "It is not empty. It has never been empty. The Priest-Kings keep their own gardens there."

He turns.

"The white talon... I have read of it. Not in the chronicles of Ven'dara, but in older scrolls from Turia. A mercenary company. Men without a Home Stone. They call themselves the Talon. They were driven north of the Forest twenty years past for raiding caravans. We thought the Forest took them."

He steps closer.

"A dream twice dreamed is no longer a dream in the doctrine of Initiates. It is a Sending. The Priest-Kings, or something else, warns you."

He places his hand on your shoulder - a liberty only an Initiate would take with an Ubar.

"Your scouts will find the clearing. If they return."

A cold wind moves through the balcony, though the night was still.

"What will you do, Ubar Ortossi of Ven'dara, if your scouts do not return tomorrow?"

You do not wait for the second sunset.

At first light, the north gate of Ven'dara opens - and this time, not quietly.

Twenty men.

Not scouts. Warriors.

Tormas himself leads them, his face grim. Ten of the Caste of Warriors in full chain, scarlet cloaks, shields painted with the crest of Ven'dara - the silver tower. Ten more of the rangers, bowmen who know the edge of the North Forest.

And with them, against all custom, walks High Initiate Barus. White robes against the scarlet and green. He carries a staff, not a weapon. He says the Priest-Kings must witness.

The people line the street now. They understand. This is not a hunt.

You stand on the wall above the gate, Ortossi, Ubar of Ven'dara. You do not speak. You raise your sword - and twenty fists strike their chests in salute.

The party moves north at double pace. They will make the Old Stone Bridge by noon. They will reach the eaves of the North Forest by nightfall. They will find the place from your dream.

What you have sent is no longer a scouting.

It is a statement. Any force that camps in the North Forest and marches toward Ven'dara will now know - Ven'dara has seen them.

In the courtyard below, your War Chief waits for your next order.

"Ubar - shall we close the gates? Shall we call in the outlying villages?"

It is done, Ubar.

The horns blow from the Tower of Ven'dara - three long blasts, then two short. A sound not heard in your city for eight years.

The Call In.

From the high wall you watch it begin.

To the north, to the east, to the south - the villages that owe fealty to your Home Stone: Tor's Hamlet, Feldmark, the Rence-cutters at Low Creek, the small steadings along the Vosk tributary. Riders go out, Warriors on swift tarnback and kaiila, bearing your seal - the Tower.

"By order of Ortossi, Ubar of Ven'dara - leave the fields. Bring what you can carry. Drive the bosk. Bring the children. The gates will remain open until sunset tomorrow. After that, none may enter or leave without word of the Ubar."

The roads fill.

By afternoon, the first wagons come - piled high with sacks of sul, caged tarsks, weeping women clutching infants, old men carrying the Home Stones of their own huts wrapped in cloth, so they will not be left for defilers.

The Warriors at the gates count them, direct them. The Caste of Builders has already opened the old granaries inside the second wall. The Caste of Physicians sets up cots.

Your city will be crowded. There will be hunger if this lasts. There will be anger. Villagers do not love to leave their fields.

But they will be alive.

High Initiate Barus stands beside you on the wall, watching the long lines on the dusty roads.

"You have done what Marlenus of Ar would have done," he says quietly.

In the far north, beyond the fields, beyond the Old Stone Bridge, the North Forest is still a black line. No smoke yet. No sign of Tormas and his twenty.

But now Ven'dara waits, with its gates open and its heart pulled inside its walls.

The War Chief approaches again. "Ubar, the villages ask - how long must they stay? What shall we tell them threatens them?"

What do you tell your people, Ubar Ortossi?

Three days, Ubar.

Three days since Tormas and his twenty left. Three days since you called in the villages. Three days of crowded streets, of bosk lowing in the inner markets, of farmers sleeping in the temples.

On the morning of the third day, the north road is empty. The gates have been closed since sunset of the first day, as you ordered.

Then - the horn from the north wall. Not the Call In. One short, sharp blast.

Riders returning.

You are on the wall before your War Chief can summon you.

It is Tormas.

But not twenty.

Seven.

Seven men come up the road, and they come slowly. Their scarlet cloaks are torn. Two are carried over kaiila, wounded. No Initiate in white walks with them.

Tormas himself is on foot, leading his kaiila. His chain is broken at the shoulder, his face black with smoke and dried blood that is not his own.

The gates open just enough to let them in. The crowd is silent.

Tormas kneels before you in the courtyard. He does not wait for you to ask.

"Ubar - you dreamed true."

He breathes hard.

"The clearing is there. Just as you said. Not a camp - a fort. Log walls, half-built. Fifty men at least, perhaps more in the deep forest. The banner - green with the white talon. Mercenaries, as the Initiate said. But not alone."

He looks up.

"They have Panther Women with them, Ubar. As guides. And..."

He hesitates.

"They have cut a road. Through the edge of the North Forest. Wide enough for wagons. For bosk. For an army. It points south. Toward us. Toward Ven'dara."

One of the wounded men behind him groans - an arrow of a kind not made in Ven'dara, short, black-feathered, still in his thigh.

"They saw us. We fought. We burned what we could. Barus..." Tormas lowers his head. "High Initiate Barus stood between us and them when they tried to encircle us. He raised his staff and spoke words I did not know. They fell back. Then an arrow took him. We could not bring him out. The Forest took him."

The courtyard is deathly quiet.

Fifty men building a fort. A road cut for an army. And your High Initiate dead in the North Forest.

The villages are inside. The gates are closed. Ven'dara is now a city under coming siege.

What is your order, Ubar Ortossi?

Then Ven'dara prepares as a City of Gor prepares - not in panic, but as a caste machine made for this.

You give the orders from the high tower, and the city moves.

By your word, Ubar Ortossi:

1. The Walls:

The Caste of Builders swarms the walls. The outer stones are checked. The great north gate - old wood bound in iron - is reinforced with fresh beams. Boiling pitch is hauled to the parapets. The Cisterns are filled from the river while the river is still ours.

2. The Warriors:

Every man of the scarlet caste who can hold a blade is called to the barracks yard. One hundred and twenty stand ready. You order the Merchant Caste to open their armories - another sixty blades of guardsmen and caravan guards who have taken Home Stone in Ven'dara. The youth of the city, boys of fifteen summers, are given spears and placed with the Veterans.

Tormas, though wounded, will not leave the wall. He binds his shoulder and takes his place at the north gate. "I saw their road, Ubar. I will be there when they try to use it."

3. The People:

The villages you called in are not idle. You order the Caste of Peasants - now crowded inside - to grind sul, to salt bosk, to count every sack. The Physicians prepare bandages and healing herbs. The Women of the city, free women of high caste, carry water to the walls without complaint, their veils tied back for work.

There is no weeping now. Ven'dara is a Gorean city. It knows war.

At sunset, you stand on the north wall again. Behind you, the city glows - torches, forges burning all night hammering arrowheads.

Before you, the road north is empty. Dark. The North Forest is still a black line. But now you know what is behind that line.

Fifty mercenaries with a road. Panther guides. How many more behind them?

Your War Chief stands beside you. "Ubar, they will not come tonight. A road takes time. A fort takes time. We have perhaps four, five days."

He looks at you.

"Do we send to our allies? To Ar? To Turia? A tarn rider could reach Torcodino in two days. Or do we stand alone, as Ven'dara has always stood, and let the white talon break upon our walls?"

The city waits for your voice, Ubar.

Alone.

You do not send the tarn rider.

Tormas hears it and nods, slowly. The War Chief strikes his chest.

"Alone," you say, and your voice carries from the north wall across the crowded courtyard below, where Warriors and Peasants and Builders and even the outlying villagers stand listening.

"Ven'dara has stood alone before the Forest. Our fathers built this wall with their own hands when Ar would not help them and Turia laughed at them. Our Home Stone is not borrowed from Ar. It is ours."

You draw your sword. In the torchlight, it catches fire.

"Let the Talon come down their road. Let them bring their panther guides and their mercenary gold. They will find no fat Turian town to plunder. They will find Ven'dara. And they will learn what it costs to march on a city that has called its children inside its walls."

A roar goes up. Not a cheer - a Gorean roar, deep, from the belly. Shields hammer against shields.

That night, no one sleeps.

By dawn of the fifth day, the scouts on the tower see it.

Smoke.

Not the thin smoke of a camp.

Thick smoke, from the Old Stone Bridge.

They have come.

They are on the road you dreamed.

The north gate is closed. The pitch is hot. The bowmen are on the wall.

You stand at the center of the gate, Ortossi, Ubar of Ven'dara, sword in hand, alone as you chose to be - and not alone at all, for your whole city stands with you.

They are coming, Ubar. Give the order to loose.

LOOSE!"

Your voice breaks like a whip over the north wall.

Tormas repeats it, raw-throated: "LOOSE!"

Sixty bows bend. Sixty strings sing at once.

The sky over the north road darkens for a breath - not with Priest-Kings' lights, but with your shafts, high, arcing, falling like hard rain toward the smoke and the green banner with the white talon.

Below, they had thought to come upon a sleeping city. They had cut their road in secret. They had built their fort in the Forest.

They had not thought Ven'dara would be waiting, walls manned, pitch hot, gates closed, every villager inside.

From the wall you see their line waver. The front rank - mercenaries in mismatched mail, shields up - stumbles. The road they cut is not wide enough for a shield wall to hold against plunging fire.

"Again!" Tormas roars.

Second flight. Third.

You do not loose. You are Ubar. Your sword is not for arrows. Your sword is for when the gate breaks - if it breaks.

But it does not break today.

By noon, the smoke from the Old Stone Bridge is thicker, but it is their fort burning, not yours. Your rangers, who know the Forest paths, set it alight from behind while their main force stared at your walls.

By sunset, the banner of the white talon lies trampled in the mud of their own road.

They retreat - not routed, these are hard men - but north, back into the trees that swallowed them twenty years ago. They will lick wounds. They will remember Ven'dara.

You stand on the wall, Ortossi, sword still sheathed, face black with smoke, and below you your city breathes.

Ven'dara stood alone.

And alone, it held.