See also Draft Tharlarion - the working
beast that pulls carts & heavy loads.
See also Saddle (High) Tharlarion -
the smaller
variety of high tharlarion used for hunting & transportation.
See also Wild Tharlarion - the
species of tharlarion that inhabits swamps and marshes.
See also River Tharlarion - the
species of tharlarion used primarily in moving river barges
Description of War Tharlarion
Monstrous I had no tarn, one of Gor's fierce saddlebirds; I had not
even the monstrous high tharlarion, used as the mounts of
shock cavalry by the warriors of some cities.
Nomads
Large
The large upright tharlarion, or war tharlarion, are guided by voice commands
and the blows of spears.
Beasts
Huge Small saddle tharlarion are generally managed by snout reins. The huge war
tharlarion are commonly guided by voice signals and the blows of spears on
the face and neck.
Fighting Slave
Steel shod claws The ringing of the tharlarion's shod claws on the
road grew louder.
Runs upright on two back feet
Two small forelegs dangle uselessly
In a minute the rider appeared in view - a fine, bearded
warrior with a golden helmet and a tharlarion lance. He drew
the riding lizard to a halt a few paces from me. He rode the
species of tharlarion which ran on its two back feet in great
bounding strides. Its cavernous mouth was lined with long,
gleaming teeth. Its two small, ridiculously disproportionate
forelegs dangled absurdly in fron of its body.
Tarnsman
Gigantic
Scaled Hides These gigantic lizards had been bred on Gor for a
thousand generations before the first tarn was tamed, and
were raised from the leathery shell to carry warriors. They
responded to voice signals, conditioned into their tiny
brains in the training years. None the less, the butt of
one's lance, striking about the eye or ear openings, for
there are few other sensitive areas in their scaled hides, is
occasionally necessary to impress your will on the monster.
Tarnsman
Carnivorous
When moving slowly, moves in a proud, stalking movement
When urged to speed, however, the high tharlarion bounds, in great leaping
movements that carry it twenty paces at a time.
(NOTE-----For comparison, a kangaroo, with a body length of 5 feet (not including tail) leaps 30 feet.)
The high tharlarions, unlike their draught brethren, the
slow-moving, four-footed broad tharlarion, were carnivorous.
However, their metabolism was slower than that of a tarn,
whose mind never seemed far from food and, if it was
available, could consume half its weight in a single day.
Moreover, they needed far less water than tarns. To me, the
most puzzling thing about the domesticated tharlarions, and
the way in which they differed most obviously from wild
tharlarions and the lizards of my native planet, was their
stamina, their capacity for sustained movement. When the
high tharlarion moves slowly, its stride is best described as
a proud, stalking movement, each great clawed foot striking
the earth with a measured rhythm. When urged to speed,
however, the high tharlarion bounds, in great leaping
movements that carry it twenty paces at a time.
Tarnsman
Tharlarion Saddle
The tharlarion saddle, unlike the tarn saddle, is constructed
to absorb shock. Primarily, this is done by constructing the
tree of the saddle in such a way that the leather seat is
mounted on a hydraulic fitting which actually floats in a
thick lubricant. Not only does this lubricant absorb much of
the shock involved, but it tends, except under abnormal
stress, to keep the seat of the saddle parallel to the
ground. In spite of this invention, the mounted warriors
always wear, as an essential porion of their equipment, a
thick leather belt, tightly buckled about their abdomen. In
addition, the mounted warriors inevitably wear a high, soft
pair of boots called tharlarion boots. These protect their
legs from the abrasive hides of their mounts. When a
tharlarion runs, its hide could tear the unprotected flesh
from a man's bones.
Tarnsman
Tarnsmen would make the attack at the
summit of the walls. When it came time for Pa-Kur to attack,
bridges would be constructed over the ditches. Over these
bridges the siege towers would be rolled to the walls of Ar;
over them his tharlarion cavalry would march; over them his
horde would flow. Light engines, mostly catapults and
ballistae, would be transported over the ditches by harnessed
tarn teams.
Tarnsman
I had carefully
determined that the corral into which I had dropped did not
contain the saddle lizards, the high tharlarions, those
ridden by Kazrak and his tharlarion lancers. Such lizards
are extremely short-tempered, as well as carnivorous, and I
had no intention of attracting attention to myself by beating
my way through them with a spear butt.
Tarnsman
"Therefore we must scatter to the forests and the mountains, taking cover
where we can. We must live off the land. We will soon be sought by all the
soldiers and guardsmen Tharna can set upon our trail. We will be pursued and
ridden down by the lancers who ride the high tharlarions! We will be hunted
and slain from the air by the bolts of tarnsmen!"
Outlaw
On long lines of tharlarion I could see warriors of Turia
approaching in procession the Plains of a Thousand Stakes.
The morning sun flashed from their helmets, their long thar-
larion lances, the metal embossments on their oval shields,
unlike the rounded shields of most Gorean cities. I could
hear, like the throbbing of a heart, the beating of the two
tharlarion drums that set the cadence of the march. Beside
the tharlarion walked other men-at-arms, and even citizens of
Turia, and more vendors and musicians, come to see the
games.
Nomads
Then they halted. As soon as the hundreds of
ponderous tharlarion had been marshaled into an order, a
lance, carrying a fluttering pennon, dipped and there was a
sudden signal on the tharlarion drums. Immediately the
lances of the lines lowered and the hundreds of tharlarion,
hissing and grunting, their riders shouting, the drums beating,
began to bound rapidly towards us.
"Treachery!" I cried.
There was nothing living on Gor I knew that could take
the impact of a tharlarion charge.
Nomads
Military Strategy of Tharlarion Cavalries
I pretended my blade had been wedged between the ribs of the center man.
Another Taurentian, by instinct, but not trained instinct, hurled himself
forward, and so died.
The four remaining men attempted to retain the picket. Moving back warily I
remained as close as I could to the picket, but out of reach, hoping to draw
yet another Warrior prematurely into attack. They remained together. As a
Warrior, though it was not to my advantage, I found this satisfying.
A close-formed military formation is difficult to maintain over rough terrain.
Indeed, the Torian Squares, which I have mentioned, common among Gorean
infantries, with their superior mobility and regrouping capacities, had, long
ago, made the phalanxes of such cities as Ar and, in the south, Turia,
obsolete. The Gorean phalanx, like its predecessors of Earth, consisted of
lines of massed spearmen, carrying spears of different lengths, forming a
wall of points; it attacked on the run, preferably on a downgrade, a military
avalanche, on its own terrain and under optimum conditions, invincible; the
Torian Squares had bested the phalanx by choosing ground for battle in which
such a formation would break itself in its advance. The invention and
perfecting of the Torian Squares and the consequent attempts to refine and
improve the phalanx, failures, were developments which had preceded the
use of tharlarion and tarn cavalries, which radically changed the face of
Gorean warfare. Yet, in the day of the tharlarion and tarn, one still finds,
among infantries, the Torian Square; the phalanx, though its impact could be
exceeded only by the tharlarion wedge or line, is now unknown, except for a
defensive relic known as the Wall, in which massed infantry remains stationary,
heroically bracing itself when flight is impossible, for the devastating
charge of tharlarion. It seemed to me obvious that the men who faced me
intended to do so as a group; already two had been lured from the picket and
had died; I did not expect that another of the four would singly rush upon me.
I backed among the bodies of the fallen Taurentians.
Assassin
"There has been major engagement, one long awaited," said the man next to
me. "south of Vonda. More than four thousand men were involved. Fighting was
fierce. The mobility of our squares was crucial in the early phases,
separating to permit the entrance of charging tharlarion into our lines, then
isolating the beasts." Massed men, I knew, could not stand against the charge
of tharlarion, not without a defense of ditches or pointed stakes.
"But then," said the man, "there retreat was sounded, but the withdrawal was
prearranged to creviced ground, to rock slopes and cragged, outjeutting
formations. Our generals had chosen their ground well." I knew too that no
fixed military formation could meet the phalanx on its own terms and survive.
Different length spears are held by different ranks, the longer spears by
the more rearward ranks. It charges on the run. It is like an avalanche,
thundering, screaming, bristling with steel. Its momentum is incredible. It
can shatter walls. When two such formations meet in a field, the clash can be
heard for pasangs. One does not meet the phalanx unless it be with another
phalanx. One avoids it, one outmaneuvers it. "Our auxiliaries then drove the
tharlarion, maddened and hissing, back into the phalanx. In the skies our
tarnsmen turned aside the mercenaries of Artemidorus. They then rained arrows
upon the shattered phalanx. While the spearmen lifted their shields to
protect themselves from teh sky, our squares swept down the slopes upon
them."
Rogue
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.
Mercenaries
We had traveled the Vosk road after crossing the Vosk on barges. It is
wide, and built like a great wall, sunk in the earth. It is marked with
pasang stones. It is, I suppose, given its nature, a military road leading
to the north, broad enough to accommodate war tharlarion, treading abreast,
and the passage, two or three, side by side, of thousands of supply wagons
and siege engines, without unduly, for more than several pasangs, extending
and exposing the lines of the march.
Slave Girl
Tharlarion related "jobs"
Tharlarion Keeper - presumably similar to a Tarn Keeper "He knows the business and needs of Ar," said the guard, "as would a
Merchant, but he is yet of the Caste of Warriors."
"He has sponsored many games," said a Tharlarion Keeper.
Assassin
Tharlarion teamster I recalled that long ago, even before I had come to Kailiuk, near the
Ihanke, or Perimerter, I had questioned a young man, a tharlarion teamster,
as to how it was that Grunt, of all white men, at that time, was permitted
to travel so far and with such impunity in the Barrens.
Blood Brothers
War Tharlarion on Gor
