Mercenaries of Gor Read Online Free PDF

Hochburg, both substantially mountain fortresses, both in the more southern and civilized ranges of the Voltai, was well-known to the warriors of Gor. His name was almost a legend. It was he who had won the day on the fields of both Piedmont and Cardonicus, who had led the Forty Days' March, relieving the siege of Talmont, who had effected the crossing of the Issus in 10,122 C.A., in the night evacuation of Keibel Hill, when I had been in Torvaldsland, and who had been the victor in the battles of Rovere, Kargash, Edgington, Teveh Pass, Gordon Heights, and the Plains of Sanchez. His (pg. 31) campaigns were studied in all the war schools of the high cities. I knew him from scrolls I had studied years ago in
    Ko-ro-ba, and from volumes in my library in Port Kar, such as the commentaries of Minicius and the anonymous analyses of "The Diaries," sometimes attributed to the military historian, Carl Commenius, of Argentum, rumored to have once been a mercenary himself.
    It was Dietrich of Tarnburg who had first introduced the "harrow" to positional warfare on Gor, that formation named for the large, rake-like agricultural instrument, used for such tasks as the further leveling of ground after plowing and, sometimes, on the great farms, for the covering of seed, In this formation spikes of archers, protected by iron-shod stakes and sleen pits, project beyond the forward lines of the heavily armed warriors and their reserves. This formation, if approached head-on by tharlarion ground cavalry, is extremely effective. It constitutes, in effect, a set of corridors of death through which the cavalry must ride, in which it is commonly decimated before it can reach the main lines of the defenders. When the cavalry is disorganized, shattered and torn by missile fire, and turns about to retreat, the defenders, fresh and eager, initiate their own attack.
    He was also the initiator of the oblique advance in Gorean field warfare, whereby large numbers of men may be concentrated at crucial points while the balance of the enemy remains unengaged. This formation makes it possible for a given army, choosing to attack only limited portions of the enemy, portions smaller than itself, to engage an army which, all told, may be three times its size, and, not unoften, to turn the flank of this much larger body, producing its confusion and rout, Too, if the attack fails, the advanced force may fall back, knowing that the balance of their army, indeed, its bulk, rested and fresh, not yet engaged, is fully prepared to cover their retreat.
    Most impressive to me, perhaps, was Dietrich of Tarnburg's coordination of air and ground forces, and his transposition of certain techniques and weapons of siege warfare to the field. The common military response to aerial attack from tarnsmen is the "shield roof" or "shield shed," a formation the same (pg. 32) as, or quite similar to, a formation once known on Earth as the testudo, or "tortoise." In this formation shields are held in such a way that they constitute a wall for the outer ranks and a roof for the inner ranks. This is primarily a defensive formation but it may also be used for advancing under fire. The common Gorean defense against tharlarion attack, if it must be met on the open ground, is the stationary, defensive square, defended by braced spears. At Rovere and Kargash Dietrich coordinated his air and ground cavalry in such a way as to force his opponents into sturdy but relatively inflexible defensive squares. He then advanced his archers in long, enveloping lines, in this way they could muster a much broader front for low-level, point-blank firepower than could the narrower concentrated squares.
    He then utilized, for the first time in Gorean field warfare, first at Rovere, and later at Kargash, mobile siege equipment, catapults mounted on wheeled platforms, which could fire over the heads of the draft animals. From these engines, hitherto employed only in siege warfare, now became a startling and