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Wagering


The Tuchuks are known amongst the peoples of Gor as "the wily ones" and it is true that they will wager on just about anything, from who will pay the price of a wineskin of ka-la-na, to who will be granted the privilege of killing an intruder. As Tarl Cabot writes:

The Tuchuks, not too unlike Goreans generally, are fond of gambling. Indeed, it is not unknown that a Tuchuk will bet his entire stock of bosk on the outcome of a kaiila race; As many as a dozen slavegirls may change hands on something as small as the direction a bird will fly or the number of seeds in a tospit.

Below are some of the more common forms taken by Tuchuk wagering.

TOSPITS


This is a simple and casual wager, most often engaged in to decide some trivial matter. It makes use of the tospit, which Tarl Cabot describes as "a small, wrinkled, yellowish-white peachlike fruit, about the size of a plum, that grows on the tospit bush, patches of which are indigenous to the drier valleys of the western Cartius. They are bitter but edible."
In the games of Tospits, each warrior puts forward a guess as to whether the number of seeds in a given fruit is odd or even. The fruit is then opened, and the one who has guessed correctly is the winner of the wager.

LANCE AND TOSPIT

Again using the fruit of the tospit bush, this wager is a bit more complicated. A tospit is balanced atop a wooden wand that has been hammered into the earth. Mounted on the back of a kaiila, a warrior runs at the target and attempts to impale the tospit on his lance while rushing past. The stroke must be deft and sure; otherwise the tospit will split, or tumble to the ground or be missed entirely. A clean hit, in which the lance goes cleanly through the fruit, is worth two points. A very light hit, in which the tospit is penetrated by only the tip of the lance, is worth three points. The reason for this is that the heavier two-point thrust would, in all likelihood, cost a warrior his lance in actual combat. The lighter thrust pierces without jeopardizing the weapon in any way.

A thrust that merely touches the tospit, and knocks it from its perch without retaining it, is worth only one point. A thrust that misses the fruit entirely, of course, is worth nothing.

SPEAR GAMBLING

This is a far more serious type of wager, for the winner is entitled to make a kill. It is commonly indulged in when a stranger approaches the territory of the Wagon Peoples, thus more or less ensuring his own death. In such a case, all of the warriors present are entitled to gamble for the privilege of taking the stranger's life.

A lance is thrust into the earth. Being made of supple tem-wood, it quivers. As it trembles, the warriors ride in a circle around it, the paws of their kaiila making the earth shake, thus intensifying the wavering of the spear. When the spear finally falls, the warrior it points to is the winner of the wager.

RUNNING FOR THE LANCE

This game is a more formalized version of the cruel sport known as "Running for the City", in which a Tuchuk warrior takes a Turian slavegirl within sight of the walls of Turia, and invites her to run for them. If she arrives at the gates, she will be free. However, she never reaches the gates, for he gives her only a few heartbreaking seconds of head start before he throws his bola at her, bringing her to the ground with an amused laugh.

For the wager, a lance is driven into the earth. It is the goal towards which the girls will run. Each side in the game has two girls who will run for them. Each girl is given fifteen heartbeats of the kaiila as a head start in her run. Then, a warrior from the opposite side spurs his kaiila after her, swinging his bola.

If a girl has run before, she may know how to make it hard to approach her. For example, she may run from side to side, instead of straight on for the lance. This gains her some time, as the rider cannot approach her as quickly. In the game of Running for the Lance, speed is all-important. It is more or less taken for granted that the girl will be brought to the ground with the bola. The real criterion for the wager is the time it takes for the warrior to do this, measured by the heartbeat of a standing kaiila. The warrior who manages to bring the girl down with his bola and secure her to his saddle in the fewest number of beats, is the winner. It must be stressed too, that the girl must be completely secured. If she succeeds in getting a hand or foot free, or even in loosening her bonds, the warrior is disqualified. The count is called at the moment when the warrior returns to the starting place, where a long bosk whip has been curled into a circle some eight to ten feet in diameter. The girls begin their run from this circle, and this circle is also the final goal of the warriors.

It must be mentioned that it is reckoned to be a great honour for a girl to stand as stake in one of these contests. Some girls, over the course of time, have become skilled as runners, and as evaders of the bola. A girl who does not run as well as she can for her Master will almost certainly be handed over to one of the hooded members of the Clan of Torturers. So, whatever outcome she may wish for the wager, her loyalty to her own Master is assured.
The warrior who secures and returns with a girl in the fewest number of beats wins the girl he has captured.

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