The Tuchuks have a warrior culture. As has been mentioned elsewhere in these scrolls, Tuchuk parents will not even bestow a name upon a son until he has fully mastered the quiva, the bow and the lance. Most weapons used by the Tuchuks have been modified in some way to allow them to be optimally used while fighting on kaiila-back. Weapons unsuitable for mounted combat, such as the sword, are rarely used by the Tuchuks.
The bola is a weapon peculiar to the Wagon Peoples. Tarl Cabot describes it thus:
It consists of three long straps of leather, each terminating in a leather
sack which contains, sewn inside, a heavy, round, metal weight. It was probably developed for
hunting the tumit, a huge, flightless carnivorous bird of the plains, but the Wagon Peoples use
it also, and well, as a weapon of war.
The technique for attacking with the bola is as follows: It is thrown low, so that it wraps around the legs of the victim. With its ten-foot sweep, and the swiftness of the throw, it is almost impossible to evade. The leather straps strike the victim and immediately tangle around the legs, the weight of the metal balls pulling the leather tight. The force is such that the victim's legs can actually be broken by the clinch of the straps. Thus bound, the victim is an easy mark for the Tuchuk warrior, who leaps from his mount and slits his throat with one sweep of the quiva.
Variations to this basic technique include the throwing of the bola so that it binds the victim's arms to his sides; the throwing of the bola at the throat, so that it crushes the windpipe and/or strangles the victim, and the most difficult of the casts: the throwing of the bola so that it wraps around the victim's head, the metal weights crushing the skull.
The lances of the Wagon Peoples are black and are made of the wood of young tem trees. They are so supple that they can be bent almost double without breaking. A mounted warrior holds the lance lightly in his right fist, where it is secured by a loop of bosk-hide wrapped twice around the hand. It is used like a saber in hand-to-hand combat, and can be handled very deftly. It is very rarely thrown. It is used for short thrusts, not for long charges at full tilt, and is never couched against the saddle. When not in use, it is carried on the warrior's back.
The quiva is another weapon peculiar to the Wagon Peoples. It is a balanced throwing knife, generally matched in sets of seven. The kaiila saddles
of the Tuchuks have seven sheaths for the carrying of these knives. The blades are double-edged and tapered, honed to a razor sharpness and mounted in handles of bosk horn or bone. The Tuchuks do no metalworking of their own. Most of their blades are forged in the smithies of Ar.
A quiva can be thrown with deadly accuracy, but it can also be used as a hand-held weapon for slitting, thrusting and piercing. Although primarily a saddle knife, the quiva is
also carried by most of the Freewomen of Gor.
The Wagon Peoples are skilled with a small, powerful bow made of bosk-horn, and reinforced with strips of leather from that animal. They carry as well narrow lacquered rectangular quivers in which some forty arrows are kept at the ready. Trained in the use of this weapon from earliest childhood, they can hit their target as easily from a running kaiila gallop as when standing still.
The Tuchuk warrior also carries a rope of braided bosk-hide coiled on one side of his kaiila saddle, and a small round shield of leather, lacquered black. Although some Tuchuks have mastered the art of swordsmanship, through mercenary service in some of the great cities of Gor, the sword is not in general use on the Plains. Neither is the saber. It must be remembered that the prime consideration for warriors of the Wagon Peoples is the efficacy of a given weapon in mounted combat. Another peculiarity of the Tuchuks is their preference for weapons that can be used at long range; hence, lances, bows, throwing-knives and bolas. The sword and saber are short-range weapons, and reckoned to be unsuitable for the wide expanses of the open plains.
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