Glory to the Black Caste
- Tarnsman Of GorBlack Caste References: Beasts Of Gor.
This page contains all of the references made throughout the John Norman book, Beasts of Gor, regarding the Black Caste Assassins.
His brilliance, his competitive edge, must be at its peak. Scormus of Ar reminded me of men of the caste of Assassins, as they sometimes are, before they begin their hunt. The edge must be sharp, the resolve must be merciless, the instinct to kill must in no way be blunted.
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Scormus would play like an Assassin. He would be merciless, and he would take no chances.
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Inside, crouching over a fallen man, the merchant, was the attacker, robed in swirling black. In his hand there glinted a dagger.
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He had turned the dagger in his hand as he had turned to face me. It is difficult to fend against the belly slash.
I must approach him with care.
"I did not know you were of the warriors, he who calls himself Bertram of Lydius," I smiled. "Or is it of the assassins?"
The struck merchant, bleeding, thrust himself back from the attacker.
The attacker?s eyes moved. There were more men coming. Gorean men tend not to be patient with assailants. Seldom do they live long enough to be impaled upon the walls of a city.
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I rolled to one side in the sudden darkness, and then scrambled to my feet. But he had not elected to attack. I heard him at the back of the booth. I heard the dagger cutting at the canvas. He had elected flight, it seemed. I did not know this for certain, but it was a risk I must take. Darkness would be my cover. I dove at the sound, low, rolling, to be under the knife, feet first, presenting little target, kicking, feet scissoring. If I could get him off his feet I might then manage, even in the darkness, regaining my feet first, to break his diaphragm or crush his throat beneath my heel, or, with an instep kick to the back of his neck to snap loose the spinal column from the skull.
But he had not elected flight.
The cutting at the canvas, of course, had been a feint. He had shown an admirable coolness.
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I thought him now of the assassins for the trick with the canvas was but a variant of the loosened door trick, left ajar as in flight, a lure to the unwary to plunge in his pursuit into the waiting blade.
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He cried out with pain and the knife had fallen. We stumbled, locked together, grappling, to the back of the tenting, and, twisted, tangled in the rent canvas, fell to the outside. A confederate was there waiting and I felt the loop of the garrote drop about my neck. I thrust the man I held from me and spun about, the cord cutting now at the back of my neck. I saw another man, too, in the darkness. The heels of both hands drove upward and the head of the first confederate snapped back. The garrote was loose about my neck. I turned. The first man had fled, and the other with him.
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"The other?" asked the peasant. "There were two," I said. "Both are gone." I looked into the darkness between the tents.
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I recalled the assailant. I recalled the turning of the blade in his hand. I remembered the coolness of his subterfuge at the back of the booth, waiting beside the rent canvas for me to thrust through it, thus locating myself and exposing myself for the thrust of the knife.
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I indicated the merchant. "Consider his wounds," I said. "The man I fought was a master, a trained killer, either of the warriors or of the assassins. He struck him as he wished, not to kill but in the feigning of a mortal attack."
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"The assailant and his confederates?" I asked.
"They are in a separate chain of command," said the merchant, "one emanating from the ships, one to which Zarendargar is subordinate."
"I see," I said.
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"What is your name?" he asked.
"Tarl," said I. "Let that suffice."
"Accepted," he said, smiling. He would not pry further into my affairs. Doubtless he assumed I was bandit, fugitive or assassin.
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"Tell him your name," she ordered the fellow on the platform.
"I do not speak to slaves," he said.
"Obey me!" she said.
He turned and went down the stairs of the platform.
"He is called Drusus," she said. "He is of the metal workers."
"He is not a metal worker," I said. "He is of the Assassins.
"No," she said.
"I have seen him use a knife," I said. "He did not obey you," I observed.
She looked at me, angrily.
"Your days in authority here," I said, "are numbered."
"I am in command here!" she said.
"For the time," I said. I looked out over the milling tabuk.
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My thoughts strayed to Vella, once Elizabeth Cardwell. Apparently she had not knowingly collaborated with Drusus, he who had called himself Bertram of Lydius. He had tricked her in the matter of the sleen. She had been his dupe. It would not then be necessary to be too hard on her. It would be sufficient, when I returned to Port Kar, merely to have her whipped for her stupidity.
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They hurried from her. In a few moments they returned, he who called himself Drusus with them.
She pointed arrogantly to the ground at her feet. "Kneel," she said to him.
Angrily he knelt.
"Tell him your name," she said to him.
The man looked up at me, in fury. "I am Drusus," he said.
"Attend now to your duties, Drusus," she said.
He got to his feet and left. I saw that she was truly in authority. If her tenure of authority were to be soon terminated there was as yet no sign of it. She looked at me, and tossed her head arrogantly. She was supreme among these men.
"It was Drusus who identified you for me," she said.
"I see," I said.
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I tied her wrists together. There was a great cheer from my men.
As I had anticipated there had been little actual fighting.
Once the wall had been broken, Drusus, of the Assassins, had departed with several men.
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"It is my conjecture," I said, "that you were eventually to be given to Drusus."
"Given?" she said.
"Of course," I said, "as a slave."
"No!" she cried.
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I backed away from the bars. This might encourage someone to approach them more closely. I could move to them swiftly. Arlene and Constance knelt to one side and behind me. This was proper. They were slaves.
"Drusus," I said.
The man stood in the doorway, in the somber garb of his caste.
"I see you wear the scarlet of the warrior," he said. It was true. I had awakened in the tunic of my caste. The furs had been taken from me.
"And you, my friend," said I, "are clothed now in the proper habiliments of your caste." He wore now, brazenly, the black of the Assassin. Over his left shoulder, looped on a ringed strap, he wore a blade, the short sword.
"May I welcome to our humble headquarters," said he, "colleagues in the arts of steel."
I inclined my head, in courtesy.
"It pleases us to have you in our power," he said. "You were a fool to come north."
"I come visiting," I said.
"You are welcome," said he, smiling. Then he snapped his fingers. Through the door, bearing a tray, came a small, exquisite, brunet female slave.
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She looked at Drusus, who indicated she should leave the room. She slipped swiftly out, obedient, barefoot on the steel plates.
"A pretty little slave," I said. "Why is she in lock gag?"
"It pleases me," he said.
"Of course," I said.
He turned to leave.
"Drusus," said Arlene. "You must help us!" She had once commanded him.
He looked at her, and she shrank back. "There is a pretty little slave, too," he said.
She, terrified, tried to cover her body with her hands, half naked in the pleasure silk. How vulnerable pleasure silk makes a woman.
"I own her," I told him.
"I shall have her," he said.
"Oh?" I asked.
"Yes," he said, "she was originally brought to Gor whh the eventual object of being at my feet. I picked her out from several future slaves."
"I see," I said.
"Perhaps you should join forces with us," said Drusus. "The Kurii are generous with women."
"I am of the Warriors," I said. "I will take by the sword what women please me."
"Of course," he said. He continued to look at Arlene, who put her head down, trembling.
"Too," I said, "it is my intention to keep by the sword what women should please me." I gestured to Arlene. "This one," I said, "at the moment pleases me."
She looked at me, frightened.
"We shall see," said Drusus.
I watched him, from behind the bars.
"Join us," he said.
"No," I said.
"Your friend, Imnak, has joined us," he said.
"I do not believe you," I said.
Drusus shrugged.
"The Kurii are generous with women," he said, "and gold."
He turned to leave.
"I would see Zarendargar," I said. "Half-Ear."
"None sees him," said Drusus. Then he turned away again. The heavy metal door closed.
I grasped the bars, angrily.
Then I turned to face the girls. I strode to Arlene. "You called out to Drusus," I said.
"Yes," she said.
"You called a free man by his name," I said, "and you spoke, too, without petitioning permission."
"Forgive me, Master," she said.
I struck her down to the furs and steel.
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It was wheeled through the halls by two men, leaning on handles from behind. Bringing up the rear, also with a dart weapon, was Drusus.
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"If I am not mistaken," said Drusus, walking behind the cart, behind the two men who wheeled it along, "your friend, Imnak, approaches."
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"We must be on our way," said Drusus.
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The gate of my cage, was opened, and a short sword was placed in my hands.
It had good balance. It was not a poor weapon. Drusus himself, I was pleased to see, stepped forth into the sand.
"I have been waiting a long time to meet you in this fashion," said he.
I measured him, his movements, the cast of his eyes. I could gather little.
He seemed slow. But I knew he did not come to his somber garb by any tardiness of action or hesitancy in deed. The training of the assassin is thorough and cruel. He who wears the black of that caste has not won it easily. Candidates for the caste are chosen with great care, and only one in ten, it is said, completes the course of instruction to the satisfaction of the caste masters. It is assumed that failed candidates are slain, if not in the training, for secrets they may have learned. Withdrawal from the caste is not permitted. Training proceeds in pairs, each pair against others. Friendship is encouraged. Then, in the final training, each member of the pair must hunt the other. When one has killed one's friend one is then likely to better understand the meaning of the black. When one has killed one's friend one is then unlikely to find mercy in his heart for another. One is then alone, with gold and steel.
I looked at Drusus.
The assassins take in lads who are perhaps characterized by little but unusual swiftness, and cunning, and strength and skill, and perhaps a selfishness and greed, and, in time, transform this raw material into efficient, proud, merciless men, practitioners of a dark trade, men loyal to secret codes the content of which is something at which most men dare not guess.
Drusus was looking at me.
I kept in mind he had survived the training of the assassin.
We stood in the center of the sand, with the other man, listening.
Suddenly the blade of Drusus leapt toward me. I deflected it. I had been waiting for the blow.
The third man on the sand seemed startled. Ram, in his cage, cried out in fury. The girls gasped. Most sat, stunned. One or two of the men in the tiers cried out approval.
"You are skilled," I told Drusus.
"You, too, are skilled," he said.
The man in the center of the sand backed uneasily away from us.
"Place each of you your right heel on the wooden rim of the sand oval," he said. His voice faltered.
We did so.
"How will you manage," I asked Drusus, "without a dark doorway from which to emerge?"
He did not speak to me.
"Perhaps a confederate in the andience will strike me when my back is turned?" I suggested.
The face of Drusus showed no emotion.
"There is perhaps poison on your blade?" I said.
"My caste does not make use of poison," he said.
I then decided that it would not he easy to agitate him, perhaps impairing his timing, or niaking him behave in a hasty manner, too zealous for a quick kill.
"Fight," said the man at the side of the ring.
We met in the center of the ring. Our blades touched and parried.
"I received my early training in the city of Ko-ro-ba," I said.
Our blades touched one another.
"What is your Home Stone?" I asked.
"Do you think I am fool enough to talk with you?" he snarled.
"Assassins, as I recall," I said, "have no Home Stones. I suppose that is a drawback to caste membership, but if you did have Home Stones, it might be difficult to take fees on one whose Home Stone you shared."
I moved his blade aside.
"You are faster than I thought," I said.
Our blades swiftly met, a moment of testing. Then we stepped back, retaining our guard position.
"Some think the caste of assassins performs a service," I said, "but I find this difficult to take seriously. I suppose they could be hired in the service of justice, but it seems they could be as easily hired in the service of anything." I looked at him. "Do you fellows have any principles?" I asked.
He moved in, swiftly, too swiftly. I did not take advantage of it.
"Apparently staying alive is not one of them," I said.
He stepped back, startled.
"You were open there for a moment," I said. He knew it and I knew it, but I was not sure those in the tiers knew it. It is sometimes difficult to see these things from certain angles.
There were jeers from the tiered benches. They did not believe what I said.
I now stalked Drusus. He kept a close guard, covering himself well. It is hard to strike a man who elects defense. He limits himself, of course, in adopting this strategem.
Now jeers against Drusus came from the benches. He began to sweat.
"Is it true," I asked, "that you, in attaining the black of your caste, once slew your friend?"
I pressed the attack, but in a courteous fashion. He defended himself well.
"What was his name?" I asked.
"Kurnock!" he suddenly cried out, angrily, and rushed toward me.
I sprawled him into the sand at my feet, and my blade was at the back of his neck.
I stepped back.
"Get up," I said. "Now let us fight seriously."
He leaped to his feet. I then administered to him, and to those in the tiers, a lesson in the use of the Gorean blade.
They sat in silence.
Then, bloodied, Drums, unsteadily, his sword arm down, wavered before me. He had been cut several times, as I had pleased.
He could no longer lift the blade. Blood ran down his arm, staining the sand.
I looked up to the mirror in the wall, that which I was confident was in actuality a one-way glass. I lifted my sword to that invisible window, in the salute of a Gorean warrior. I then turned again to face Drusus.
"Kill me," he said. "It is twice I have failed my caste." I lifted the blade to strike him. "I will be swift," I told him.
I poised the steel.
"Let it be thus that an old debt owed to one named Kurnock is repaid," I said.
"That is the first time I failed my caste," said Drusus.
I regarded him.
"Strike," he said.
"I do not understand," I said.
"I did not kill Kurnock," he said. "He was no match for me. I could not bring myself to kill him."
I handed the sword to the third man on the sand.
"Kill me!" cried Drusus.
"Do you think a warrior can show less mercy than an Assassin?" I asked.
"Kill me," wept Drusus, and then, from the loss of blood, fell into the sand.
"He is too weak to be an assassin," I said. "Remove him."
Drusus was drawn from the sand. The man who had been in charge of the combat then released Arlene from the iron post.
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"Drusus," I said. I recalled him, he of the Assassins, whom I had bested on the sand of the small arena.
He carried a dart-firing weapon.
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"You serve Kurii," I said.
"No longer," said he. "I fought, and was spared by one who was a man. I have thought long on this. Though I may be too weak to be an Assassin, yet perhaps I have strength sufficient unto manhood."
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"Perhaps it would be well for you to ask permission before you speak in the presence of free men," I said.
She put her head down.
"She would look well naked, on an auction block," said Drusus.
"Yes," I said.
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Drusus lifted his weapon, calmly. A dart hissed forth. The first Kur stopped and then, suddenly, burst apart. Another reeled away from him. Another tore the blood and flesh from his face, half blinded, roaring with fury. A dart hissed above our heads and rent in its explosion the metal behind us. I fired a dart and another Kur spun about hideously, scratching at the metal, and then, before our eyes, erupted as though it had engorged a bomb. The six Kurii remaining, one with an arm dragging on the floor, hung to its body by torn shreds of muscle, scrambled backwards, snarling. Then they disappeared about a corner.
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"We have failed," said Drusus.
I nodded in agreement. The strange common project of two men, of diverse and antagonistic, yet strangely similar castes, an Assassin and a Warrior, had failed.
"What is now to be done?" he asked.
"We must attempt to reach the chamber of Zarendargar," I said.
"It is hopeless," he said.
"Of course," I said. "But I must attempt it. Are you with me?"
"Of course," he said.
"But you are of the Assassins," I said.
"We are tenacious fellows," he smiled.
"I have heard that," I said.
"Do you think that only Warriors are men?" he asked.
"No," I said. "I have never been of that opinion."
"Let us proceed," he said.
"I thought you were too weak to be an Assassin," I said.
"I was once strong enough to defy the dictates of my caste," he said. "I was once strong enough to spare my friend, though I feared that in doing this I would myself be killed."
"Perhaps you are the strongest of the dark caste," I said.
He shrugged.
"Let us see who can fight better," I said.
"Our training is superior to yours," he said.
"I doubt that," I said. "But we do not get much training dropping poison into people?s drinks."
"Assassins are not permitted poison," he said proudly.
"I know," I said.
"The Assassin," he said, "is like a musician, a surgeon. The Warrior is like a butcher. He is a ravaging, bloodthirsty lout."
"There is much to what you say," I granted him. "But Assassins are such arid fellows. Warriors are more genial, more enthusiastic."
"An Assassin goes in and does his job, and comes out quietly," he said. "Warriors storm buildings and burn towers."
"It is true that I would rather clean up after an Assassin than a Warrior," I said.
"You are not a bad fellow for a Warrior," he said.
"I have known worse Assassins than yourself," I said.
"Let us proceed," he said.
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We had scarcely attained the second level than we heard the cry, "Halt!"
Drusus spun and fired a dart, swiftly, from the hip. Men scattered. The dart caromed off a wall and exploded near them.
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"We can blast our way in," said Ram. "Let us do that," said Drusus.