|
Civitatis Ar, Plus!
Avenues / Streets / Districts
Military Roads
I stood straighter then, by the
wall, for I now heard the counting of a cadence. Passing now in the street
before me, in ranks of four, was a column of men. The four files, as I
counted that nearest to me, were fifty deep. The men wore scarlet tunics.
Behind their left shoulders were round shields. On their heads were
scarlet caps, with yellow tassels. Behind their left shoulder, over the
shields, there hung steel helmets. Sheathed swords, short, were slung at
their left shoulders. On their right shoulders they bore spears, with
long, bronze, tapering blades. Their feet wore heavy, thick-soled sandals,
which, almost like boots, with swirling leather, rose high about their
calves. The sound of these bootlike sandals on the atones of the street
was clear and regular. Behind the right shoulder, slung on the shaft of
the spears, were light packs. I gathered the men were leaving the city.
The Gorean infantryman usually marches light. Military supply posts,
walled, occur at intervals on major roads. Indeed, one of the apparent
anomalies of Gor is the quality and linearity of certain roads, which are
carefully kept in repair, roads which often, seemingly paradoxically, pass
through sparsely populated territories. The nature of these roads and
their quality seems peculiar until one examines maps on which they occur.
It then becomes clear that most of them lead toward borders and frontiers.
They are then, in effect, military highways. This becomes clearer, too,
when it is recognized that most of the supply posts occur at forty pasang
intervals. Forty pasangs is an average day's march for a Gorean
infantryman. I wondered why the troops were leaving the city. Too, such
troops, as I understood it, usually departed from a city in the early
morning, primarily, I supposed, that a normal day's march might be
completed. I watched the troops disappearing down the street. They had
been led by two officers, also afoot. The column had been flanked, too, by
two other officers, presumably of lesser rank. The column's tread had been
even. The unison bad been unpretentious but, in its way, stirring and
dramatic. One felt that what was passing was not at that moment simply a
collection of men, an aggregate of diverse individuals, but a unit. This,
I take it, was a tribute to the training of such men. At the head of the
column, behind the officers, but a pace or two before the rightermost man
in the first rank, there marched a fellow who bore a standard on which was
mounted an image of a silver tarn. Many such standards are over a century
old. The Gorean soldier is commonly a professional soldier, usually of the
caste of Warriors. In a sense, given the cruel selections undergone by his
forebears, he has been bred to his work. In his blood there is the spear
and war.
The column had now disappeared. When departing from main roads such troops
can be followed by bosk wagons or tharlarion wagons, bearing supplies.
Too, by tarn, they can be supplied from the air. It should also be
mentioned that it is not unusual nor impractical for such troops, which
are usually in fairly small numbers, to live off the game-rich Gorean
countryside. Levies, too, within certain territories, can be imposed on
villages for their provisioning. Mobility and surprise are often features
of Gorean warfare. Much of it is more akin to the raid than to the siege
or the open conflict of large bodies of men over large areas. It would be
extremely unusual, for example, for a Gorean city to have more than five
thousand men in the field in a given time. FIGHTING SLAVE OF GOR-,
(14) Pages 179-180
Kudos to you, Mr. Norman for writing the Gorean series!
A rich, yet utterly simple saga; a world, a time, a people;
those of the Counter-Earth .. the planet .. Gor.
Thank you!
The material presented herein was researched and compiled by me,
naia{Saul}.
The material referenced comes from John Norman's Gor Series, The
Counter-Earth Saga.
This is a work in process.
Please, do not take, copy, duplicate, or use this work as your own.
If you find it valuable enough to share, please .. share the link to this
page.
To Top
|