Marauders of Gor

Chapter 18 What then occurred in the camp of the Kurii

The Kur dropped back from the blade. Howling I leapt upon another, striking it before it could rise, and then another.

Simultaneously with the attack from the slopes the girls in the cattle pen, following the orders of masters, conveyed to them by Hilda, crying out, fled in their hundreds from the pen, streaming throughout the camp. The herd sleen rushed among them but, confused in the numbers, found lt diffcult to single out women for returning to the pen. Similarly the marine predator attacking a school of shimmering flashing bodies makes fewer successful strikes than he would if he were able, undistracted, to single out individual quarries. A sleen would no sooner mark out a girl for return to the pen than three or four others would constantly enter and disappear from his ken, often luring him into their pursuit, while the first slips free, in her turn later perhaps to save another similarly. Furthermore, when a sleen would fasten on a given girl she would permit herself, rapidly, to be returned to the pen. Thus the sleen, obedient to its training, would not harm her. As soon as she was back in the pen, of course, she would leave it again, escaping from a different sector. Any girl found remaining in the pen by a man of Torvaldsland, seeking her own safety, unless she had been ordered there by a free attacker, was to be summarily slain. I was pleased to note that the women feared more the men of Torvaldsland than even sleen and Kurii. Danger to them was of no interest to us. Their lives were unimportant. They were slaves. Accordingly, we used them to create a diversion. Many Kurii, springing from their tents, emerging from the leather and fur shelter tunnels, confused, first saw only the sleek, two-legged cattle streaming past, until perhaps axes fell upon them. The nature of the attack, and its extent, would not be clear to them.

A Kur lifted its great ax. I charged him, my ax swift before he could strike.

I wrenched free the blade of the ax, as it slumped down, breaking it free from its jawbone and shoulder.

“Tarl Red Hair!” I heard cry. It was the voice of a girl, wild, slender. I turned. I realize now it was Thyri, but I did not recognize her at the time. I stood mighty and terrible, the ax ready, my clothes drenched with blood, the Kur rolling and jerking at my feet. She put her hand before her mouth, her eyes terrified, and fled away.

I saw a Kur seize a man ofThorgard of Scagnar’s camp and tear his head from his body.

The attackers, as well as the men of Thorgard of Scagnar, wore yellow scarves at their shoulders. Many Kurii, confused in the beginning, had fallen to the axes of scarved men, putatively their allies. Now, however, indiscriminately, they sought to destroy all armed male humans. Many were the men of Thorgard who fell beneath the teeth and steel of Kurii, and several were the Kurii who fell to the weapons of Thorgard’s men, as they fought madly to defend themselves.

Once I saw Thorgard of Scagnar and Ivar Forkbeard trying to reach him. But Ivar was blocked by Kurii and warriors, and joined in their combat.

I heard the screaming of slave girls.

I saw two Kurii converging on Gorm.Twice, from behind, the ax swept laterally, once to the left, the second time to the right, chopping through the spines.

A sleen, more than eleven feet in length, six-legged, slid past, its fur wiping against my thigh.

Gorm, in his madness, was cutting at the bodies of theKurii fallen now before him, shrieking.

Shoulder to shoulder, fighting, I saw Bjarni of Thorstein Camp and the young man, whom I had championed on the dueling ground in the thing.I smelled fire. There was the howling of Kurii.

I saw a Kur, barred with brown, turning, backing away, snarling, limping, from Ottar, who kept the Forkbeard’s farm. Ottar pursued it, heedless of his safety, his eyes wild, killing it, cutting its body then in two with repeated blows of his ax.

I saw the huge, little-known man of Torvaldsland, who had joined the host late, calling himself Hrolf, from the East, who had come from the direction of the Torvaldsberg. With a cry he thrust his spear through the chest of a Kur.

He fought magnificently.

A Kur charged. I side-stepped, catching it in the belly with the ax.

I saw another Kur, undecided, startled. I slipped in gut. It charged. I reared the handle of the ax, catching it in the stomach, turning it to one side. It grunted. I leapt up, catching it in the side of the neck before it could rise. Its head half to one side it rose to its feet and ran for a dozen yards before it slipped, falling sideways, rolling into the fur and burning leather of one of their lodges.

“Protectme!” I heard. A female threw herself to my feet, putting her head to my ankle. “Protect me!” she wept. I looked down. She lifted her face, terrified, tear-stained. She had dark hair, dark eyes. I saw the iron collar, dark, on her white throat. It was Leah, the Canadian girl. Withmy foot I thrust her, weeping, to one side. There was men’s work to do.

I met the attack of the Kur squarely. The handle of its ax smote down across the handle of mine, forcing me to one knee. Slowly I reared up, forcing the handle, now held in the two paws of the Kur, upward and backward. It again thrust down, with its full weight and strength, certain that it could crush the puny strength of a human. I held it only long enough to satisfymyself that I could, then I withdrew the handle swiftly, twisting to one side and lifting the ax. It fell forward, startled. I stepped on the handle of the ax. It tried to dislodge it. My ax was raised. It roIled wildly to one side. My blow fell against its left shoulder blade, dividing it. Howling, it leapt to its feet, backing away from me, baring its fangs. I followed it. It turned suddenly and leapt away. I caught it before the opening of a pavilion tent, one of those of Thorgard of Scagnar, perhaps his own. The tent was striped. The Kur, turning, now facing me, moved backward; it stumbled against a tent rope, jerking loose its peg. I leaped forward, striking it again, at the left hip. The side of its furred leg was drenched with blood. Hunched over, snarling, it backed into the tent, where I followed it. There was screaming from within the tent, the screaming of Thorgard’s silken girls, many of them short, plump, lusciously bodied. Some were chained by the left ankle. The silks they wore, clinging and diaphanous, were designed not to conceal their beauty but to reveal it, to enhance and accentuate it, to expose it sensuously to the survey of a master. They, collared, shrank back, cowering on the cushions, drawing back to the side of the tent. I scarcely glanced at them. They would belong to the victors.

The Kur, backing away, with its right arm, reaching across its body, tore up one of the tent poles, wrenching it free of the earth, the tent. The tent sagged near him. He snarled. He thrust out with the tent pole, using the spike at its top like a spear. Then he swung the pole, striking at me. I waited. It was weak from the loss of blood. It turned about again and fled to the opposite wall of the tent. It tried to tear the siIk, and it was at the wall of the tent that I caught it. I lifted my ax from the body, and turned to face the women. I strode to them. They knelt, huddled together, holding one another, at the side of the tent. They put down their eyes, trembling. I left the tent.

“Where is Thorgard of Scagnar?” asked Ivar Forkbeard. His shirt was half torn away. There was Kur blood on his chest and against the side of his face.

“I do not know,” I told him.

Behind Ivar Forkbeard, naked, wearing his collar, I saw Hilda, Thorgard’s daughter.

“There is a rallying of Kurii by the verr pens!” cried a man.

Quickly Ivar and myself hurried to the verr pens.

The rally was ill fated. Spears fell among the determined Kurii. Several fell in the mud and filth of the verr pens themselves, the bleating animals, frightened, darting about, leaping over the bodies.

Near the verr pens we found chained male slaves, picked up by Kurii on foraging expeditions, and used as porters. There were more than three hundred such wretches.

Svein Blue Tooth was at the pens, leading the attack that had broken the rally. The rally had been led by the Kur who had been foremost in the attack on his hall. This Kur, it seemed, had disappeared, scattering with the others. The Blue Tooth stepped over the body of a fallen Kur. He gestured to the chained male slaves. “Free them,” he said, “and give them weapons. There is yet work to do.” Eagerlythe slaves, when theirmanacles had been struck away, picked up weapons and sought Kurii.

“Do not permit Kurii to escape to the south,” said Svein Blue Tooth to Ketil, keeper of his high farm, who had been famed as a wrestler.

“The bosk herd blocks their escape in numbers,” said Ketil. “Some have even been trampled.”

“We have been tricked!” cried a man. “Across the camp is the true rally, hundreds of Kurii! All falls before them! This was a ruse to draw men here, permitting Kurii to regroup in numbers elsewhere!”

My heart leaped.

No wonder the commander of the Kurii had left his forces here, disappearing. I wondered if they knew his real intent had been elsewhere. I admired him. He was a true general, a most dangerous and lethal foe, unscrupulous, brilliant.

“It seems,” grinned Ivar Forkbeard, “we have a worthy adversary.”

“The battle turns against us!” cried a man.

“They must be held!” said Ivar Forkbeard. We heard the howling of Kurii, from almost a pasang away, on the other side of the camp. Drifting to us, too, were the cries of men. “Let us join the fray, Tarl Red Hair,” invited the Forkbeard.

Fleeing men rushed past us. The Forkbeard struck one, felling him.

“To the battle,” said he. The man turned, and, taking his weapon, fled back to the fighting. “To the battle!” cried the Forkbeard. “To the battle!”

“They cannot be held!” cried a man. “They will sweep the camp!”

“To the battle!” cried the Forkbeard.

We ran madly toward the fighting.

There, already lifted, we saw the signal spear of Svein Blue Tooth. About it swept Kurii. It was like a flag on an island. At its foot stood the mighty Rollo, striking to the left and right with his ax. No Kur who approached the signal spear did not die. Hundreds of men, in ragged, scattered lines, strung out laterally, accompanied us. Kwrii, overextended, meeting this new resistance, to piercing howls, fell back, to regroup for another charge.

“Form lines!” cried Svein Blue Tooth. “Form lines!” The Blue Tooth, their Jarl, was with them! Men fought to take their place, under his eyes, in the first line.

The Blue Tooth himself now stood with Rollo, his own hand on the signal spear.

We saw the overlapping shields of the Kurii line, the axes. There must have been better than two thousand Kurii formed.

Then, to our surprise, from within the Kurii lines we saw two or three hundred slave girls whipped forth. They were bound together in fours and fives. Some were bound together by the wrists, others by the ankles, some by the waist, many by the throat. They were cattle, caught and tethered in the camp, in the confusion, by Kurii. They were to be used to break our lines. I saw Ael~ gifu, Pudding, among them. Her wrists were pulled out from the side of her body, bound to the wrist of a girl on either side, as they themselves were fastened. We heard the cracking of whips, and the cries of pain. Faster and faster ran the girls toward us, fleeing the whips. Behind them, rapidly, the Kurii advanced.

“Charge!” cried the Svein Blue Tooth. The lines of men, too, hurtled forward.

Not ten yards before the clash took place, Svein Blue Tooth and his lieutenants before the running line, as the girls, under the whips of Kurii, fled, terrified, seeing the axes, the leveled weapons, toward them, made a sign no bond-maid of the north mistakes, the belly sign. Almost as one the girls, crying out, flung themselves to their bellies among the bodies and the charge of the men of Torvaldsland, missing not a step, took its way over them, striking the startled Kurii with an unimpeded impact. I cut down one of the Kurii with its whip. “When the whip is put to the back of slaves,” I told it, “it is we who shall do so.” There was, instantly, fierce fighting, in and among, and over, the bodies of the tethered bond-maids. Those who could covered their heads with their hands. Bodies, human and Kur, fell bloodied to the grass. Bond-maids, half crushed, some with broken bones, screamed. They struggled, some to rise, but, tethered, few could do so. Most lay prone, trembling, as the feet shifted about them, weapons clashing over their heads. The Kurii, some seventeen or eighteen hundred of them, fell back.

“Cut the wenches free,” ordered Svein Blue Tooth. Blades swiftly freed the prone, hysterical bond-maids. Many were covered with blood. Svein Blue Tooth, and others, by the hair, hurled bond-wenches to their feet. “Get to the pen!” he cried. They stumbled away, hurrying to the pen. “Help her!” ordered the Blue Tooth to two frightened girls. They bent to lift and support one of their sisters in bondage, whose leg was broken, binding fiber still knotted about the ankle. “Tarl Red Hair!” wept Gunnhild. My blade flashed at her throat, cutting the tether that bound her, on either side, to two other girls. “Get to the pen,” I told her. “Yes, my Jarl!” she cried, running toward the pen. The girls, those who could, fled the field, to return to the pen in which the Kurii had originally confined them. Those who could not walk were, under the orders of-men, by other bond-maids, carried or aided to the pen. I saw Pretty Ankles put out her hand to Ivar Forkbeard. Severed binding fiber was knotted tight about her belly. “To the pen,” commanded the Forkbeard. Weeping, she hurried to the pen.

“They charge!” cried a man.

With a great howling, again Kurll ran toward us. Our lines buckled but, again, afterminutes of terrible fighting, they fell back.

On one side of me fought the mighty Rollo, his lips foaming, his eyes wild, on the other side he who called himself Hrolf, from the East, the bearded giant with bloodied spear. Well did he acquit himself. Then others stood with me. Rollo went to the signal spear. He who spoke of himself as Hrolf disappeared.

Twice more were there charges, once by Kurii, once by men. We were thrown back from the shield wall with devastating losses. Had it not been for the force of Svein Blue Tooth, the power of his voice, the mightiness of his presence, Kurii might then have taken the initiative. “Form lines!” he cried. “Regroup! Spears to the second line!” A hedge of spears, projecting from the lines of men, men with axes between them, waited for Kurii, should they try to press their advantage.

Then the spear line faced the shield wall. A hundred yards of bloodied grass, of bodies, of men and Kurii, separated two species of warring animal.

Kurii from within the camp, where they could, streamed to join their comrades. Men, too, where they could break away from small battles, individual combats, found their way to our lines.

It seemed startling to me that we had stood against Kurii, but we had.

The Kurii showed no signs of emerging from the shield wall. It consists of two lines, one on the ground, the other at chest level, of overlapping shields. The shields turn only for the blows of axes. We could see the two front lines, one kneeling, one standing, of Kurii. Similar lines, fierce, obdurate, protective, extended about the formation, on all sides, forming the edges of the Kurii war square. Within the square, formed into ragged “Hands,” “Kurii,” and “Bands,” with their appropriate leaders, were massed a considerable number of Kurii, ready to charge forth should the shield wall open, or to support it if it seemed in danger of weakening. It was my supposition that their square contained, now, better than twenty-three hundred beasts.

“Let us again attack the square!” cried a man.

“No,” said Svein Blue Tooth. “We cannot break the square.”

“They will wait for night,” said Ivar Forkbeard.

Men shuddered. The Kur has excellent night vision. Men would, for practical purposes, be blind.

“They will slaughter us with the fall of night,” said a man.

“Let us withdraw now,” said another.

“Do you not think they will hunt us in the darkness?” asked Svein Blue Tooth. He looked up. “It is past noon,” he said. Then he said, “I am hungry.” He looked to some of his men. “Go to Kurii fallen. Cut meat. Roast it before our lines.”

“Good,” said Ivar Forkbeard. “Perhaps they will break the square for us.”

But the square did not break. Not a beast moved. Svein Blue Tooth threw Kur meat into the dirt, in disgust.

“Your plan has failed,” said Ivar Forkbeard.

“Yes,” said Svein Blue Tooth grimly, “they are waiting for night.”

I saw the general within their square, the huge Kur whom I had seen before, in the hall of Svein Blue Tooth, it with the golden ring on the left arm. The ring of gold, as far as I knew, had no military significance. Many Kurii wear such rings, and necklaces and earrings. That no ring of reddish alloy was worn, which would distinguish the leader of a Band or March was of interest. The leader of a Band wears two welded, reddish rings, the leader of the March, which contains twelve Bands, only one. The general in the form tion against which we stood wore not even one reddish rin Surely he was not a “Blood” of a “People.” Yet there w little doubt of his authority, or his right to such authority expected he stood as a commander from one of the stcworlds themselves, sent to unite and command native Kur.

“Sometimes,” said I. “Kurii react to blood, reflexively.’

“They have had their fill of blood,” said Ivar Forkbeard.“The air is heavy with it.” Even I could smell blood, mixing with the smoke of fires, where Kurii lodges burned.

But the Kurii square held. It did not move.

“They are patient,” said Svein Blue Tooth. “They wait for night.”

At the same time Ivar Forkbeard and myself looked one another. I smiled. He grinned.

“We shall break the square,” I told Svein Blue Tooth,“We shall do so in one Ahn. Find what food and water you can. Feed the men. Give them drink. Be ready.”

He looked at us, as though we might be mad. “I shall,” he said, fingering the stained tooth of the Hunjer whale whi ch hung about his neck.

Kurii lifted their heads, apprehensive. They heard I bellowing, before it came to the ears of men.

The earth began to tremble.

Dust, like smoke, like the earth was burning, rolled in the air.

They looked to one another.

Then the air was filled with the thunder of hoofs, bellowing of the bosk. The bosk, in their charging hundreds, heads down, hooves pounding, maddened, relentless, driven, struck the square.We heard, even from behind the herd, Ivar, and I, and ahundred men, screaming and shouting, the howling, the startled shrieks of Kurii, the enraged roars of Kurii. We heardthe scraping of horns on metal, the screams of gored Kurii;the howls of Kurii fallen beneath the hoofs. Nothing onGor withstands the charge of the maddened bosk. Larls themselves will flee before it. The herd thrust through the square and, half milling, half still running, emerged from its other side, making for the slopes of the valley. Dazed, injured Kurii, their formations disrupted, reeled, only to find, among them, screaming men, the launched horde of Svein Blue Tooth. His charge was unleashed while the last of the bosk were still striking the western edge of the square, and other animals were streaming, bellowing, goring, through it. Screaming men, axes raised, emerged from the dust, running, falling upon the devastated Kurii. Not an instant had they been given to regroup themselves. Kurii, howling, fled, knots of men following individuals.

“Press them! Press them!” screamed the Blue Tooth. “No quarter. No quarter!”

Once again the camp became a melee of small combats, only now the Kurii, where they could, fled. If they fled north, they were permitted to do so, for north lay the “bridge of jewels.” Since morning this “bridge” had lain in wait, more than four hundred archers surmounting the pass. That there is an apparent avenue of escape serves to make the enemy think in terms of escape; a cornered foe, desperate, is doubly dangerous; a foe who thinks he may, by swift decision, save himself, is less likely to fight with ferocity; he is quicker to abandon his lines, quicker to give up the combat.

Ivar and I strode through the burning camp, axes in our hand. Men followed us.

Where we came on them we killed Kurii.

We passed the poles of the vast pen. Within it, looking through the bars, not daring to leave it, were hundreds of bond-maids. We saw Pouting Lips within. Behind her was Leah, the Canadian girl. Ivar blew Pouting Lips a kiss, in the Gorean fashion, brushing the kiss with his fingertips toward her. She extended her hands through the poles but we turned away, leaving her, and the Canadian girl, behind them.

We saw a sleen herding a girl back to the pen. She was turning about, crying, scolding it, but it, snarling, relentless,snapped at her, cutting at her heels with its fangs. She: before it, weeping, running to the pen.

Ivar and I laughed. “They are useful beasts in herdingwomen,” he observed.

“My Jarl,” said a voice. We turned about. Hilda knelt beforeIvar Forkbeard, her hair to his feet. “May I not follow my Jarl?” she begged. “A lowly bond-maid begs to heel her Jarl.”

“Then, heel,” said Ivar, good-naturedly, turning away.

“Thank you, my Jarl!” she wept, leaping to her feet, falling into step on his left, two steps behind him.

We heard, behind a tent, the snarl of a Kur. Ivar and I swiftly, circled the tent.

It was a large Kur, brownish, with blazing eyes, rings its ears. In its right hand it dragged a human female. It was Thyri. Ivar motioned me back. Blocking the path of the Kur was a man, in a kirtle of white wool, a collar of black iron at his throat. He held his ax lifted. The Kur snarled, but the man, Tarsk, Thrall of the Forkbeard, once Wulfstan of Kassau, did not move. More than once today had I seen the fellow Tarsk at work in the fighting. In the lines of Svein Blue Tooth, once he had fought not more than six men from my right. His ax, and his kirtle, were much bloodied.Many times had his ax in the ferocities of combat drunk the blood of Kurii.

The Kur threw the girl to one side. In her collar she f whimpering, her eyes filled with terror.

The Kur cast about and suddenly darted its great handdown and clutched an ax, a Kur ax.

Wulfstan did not strike. He waited. The lips of the Kur drew back. He now had the ax firmly in his two heavy fists.He snarled.

Thyri lay on her side, the palms of her hands on the ground, her right leg under her. She watched the two beasts contesting her, the Kur and the human beast, terrible with the bloodied ax, Wulfstan of Kassau. The fight was swift andsharp. Ivar was pleased. “You did well,” he told the youngman. “You did well earlier today, and now. You are free.

At his feet lay the bloodied Kur. He stood over it, a free man. “Wulfstan,” cried Thyri. She sprang to her feet and ran to him, burying her head, weeping, in her hair against his chest. “I love you,” she wept. “I love you!”

“The wench is yours,” laughed Ivar Forkbeard.

“I love you,” wept Thyri.

“Kneel,” said Wulfstan.

Startled, Thyri did so. “You are mine now,” said Wulfstan.

“But surely you will free me, Wulfstan!” she cried.

Wulfstan lifted his head and uttered a long, shrill whistle, of the sort with which Kurii summon herd sleen. One of the animals must have been within a hundred yards for it came immediately. Wulfstan lifted Thyri by one arm and threw her before the beast. “Take her to the pen,” said Wulfstan to the animal. “Wulfstan!” cried Thyri. Then the beast, snarling, half-charged her, stopping short, hissing, eyes blazing. “Wulfstan!” cried Thyri, backing away from the beast, shaking her head. “No, Wulfstan!” “IfI still wish you later,” he said, “I will retrieve you from the pen, with others which I might claim as my share of the booty.” “Wulfstan!” she cried, protesting. The sleen snapped at her, and, weeping, she turned and fled to the pen, the beast hissing and biting at her, driving her before it.

The three of us laughed. Ivar and I had little doubt that Wulfstan, upon reflection, would indeed retrieve his pretty Thyri, vital and slim, from the pen, and, indeed, perhaps others as well. Once the proud young lady of Kassau had spurned his suit, regarding herself as being too good for him. Now he would see that she served him completely, deliciously, helplessly, as a bond-maid, an article of his property, his to do with as he wished, and perhaps serve him as only one of several such lowly wenches. We laughed. Thyri would wear her collar well for a master such as Wulfstan, once of Kassau, now of Torvaldsland. We looked after her. We saw her, furious, running helplessly for the pen, the sleen at her heels.

Ivar Forkbeard, followed by Tarl Red Hair and Wulfstan of Torvaldsland, heeled by the bond-maid, Hilda, picked his way toward the burned, looted tents of Thorgard of Scagnar.In the valley there burned, still, a thousand fires. Here andthere, mounted on stakes, were the heads of Kurii. W stepped over broken axes, shattered poles, torn leather, from the lodges of the Kurii. We passed a dozen men emptying kegsof ale. It had become cloudy. We heard a ship’s songfrom two hundred yards to our right. We passed a group of men who had captured a Kur. A heavy block of wood had been thrust into its jaws and, with leather, bound there.It was bleeding at the left side of its face. Its paws had beentied together at its belly and its legs tied in leather ankleshackles. They were beating it back and forth between themwith the butts of spears. “Down! Roll over!” commanded one of the men. It was beaten to its knees and then belly. Prodded by spears it rolled over. A girl fled past us, a sleen,brown and black, padding at her heels. I slipped once. Thedirt, in many places, was soft, from the blood. We pickedour way among bodies, mostly those of Kurii, for the sur prise, the fury, had been ours. We passed five men, about fire, roasting a haunch of Kur. The smell was heavy, andsweet, like blood. In the distance, visible, was the height the Torvaldsberg. I saw Hrolf, from the East, the bearded giant who had joined our forces, asking only to fight withus, leaning on his spear, soberly, surveying the field. In a other place we saw a framework of poles set on the field. From the crossbar, hung by their ankles, were the bodies five Kurii. Two were being dressed for the spit; two, as yet had been untouched; blood was being drained into a helm from the neck of the fifth.

“Ivar Forkbeard!” cried the man holding the helmet. He lifted the helmet to Ivar. Over the helmet Ivar doubled a nd held his fist, making the sign of Thor. Then he drank, a handed to me the helmet. I poured a drop from the helm to the reddish, muddied earth. “Ta-Sardar-Gor,” said I, “ the Priest-Kings of Gor.” I looked into the blood. I saw nothing. Only the blood of a Kur. Then I drank. “May the ferocity of the Kur be in you!” cried the man. Then, taking the helmet back, and throwing his head back, he drained it, blood running at the side of his mouth, trickling to the fur at the collar of his jacket. Men about cheered. “Come,” said Ivar to us. “Look,” said a man nearby. He was cutting, with a ship’s knife, a ring of reddish alloy from the arm of a fallen Kur. The knife could not cut the ring. He lifted it, obdurate and bloody. It was the only ornament the beast wore. “A high officer,” said Ivar. “Yes,” said the man. Be hind him stood a blond slave girl, naked, her hair falling to her waist. I gathered she belonged to him. “We are victorious!” said the man to her, brandishing the ring. Over her iron collar she wore a heavy leather Kur collar, high, heavily sewn, with its large ring. He thrust her two wrists, before her body, into the ring he had cut from the Kur. He then tied them inside, and to, the ring. He then, from his belt, took a long length of binding fiber and, doubling it, looped it, securing it at its center to the ring, leaving two long ends. He then threw her, on her back, over the body, head down, of the fallen Kur. He took the two loose ends of the binding fiber and, taking them under the body of the fallen Kur, dragged her wrists, elbows bent, over and above her head; he then, bending her knees, tied one of the loose ends about her left ankle, and the other about her right. It was the Gorean love bow. He then, regarding her, cut the Kur collar from her throat with the ship’s knife. He threw it aside. She now wore only one collar, his. She closed her eyes. She moved, lying across it, on the body of the Kur. It was still warm. “It is we who are victorious,” said he. She opened her eyes. “It is you who are victorious, Master,” she said. Already her hips were moving. “I am only a slave girl,” she wept. With a roaring laugh he fell upon her.

“Ivar! Ivar!” cried a voice.

We heard the slave girl cry out with pleasure.

“Ivar!” cried a voice.

Ivar Forkbeard looked up, to see Ottar up the slope of the valley, waving to him.

We made our way toward Ottar, who stood near the burned, fallen tents of Thorgard of Scagnar.

“Here are prisoners and much loot,” said Ottar. He gestured at some eleven men of Thorgard of Scagnar. Thewere stripped of their helmets, belts and weapons. The stood, chained by the neck, their wrists shackled befor them.

“I see only loot,” said the Forkbeard.

“Kneel!” ordered Ottar.

“Sell them as slaves in Lydius,” said the Forkbeard. Heturned away from the men.

“Heads down!” commanded Ottar.

They knelt, their heads to the muddied dirt.

The Forkbeard looked at many of the boxes and chests and sacks, of wealth. I had seen this, or much of it, earlier in the morning, when I had pursued the Kur to the tent of Thorgard of Scagnar.

To one side knelt the silken girls I had seen in the tent.There were seventeen of them. Under the dark sky, kneeling in the mud, they looked much different than they had in the tent. Their silks were soiled, their legs and the bottom of their feet stained with mire. Their hands were tied behind their backs. They were fastened to one another by bindingfiber in throat coffle. Those that had been wearing chains had had the locks unfastened, the keys found in one of the chests in a nearby tent. Over them, proud and regal, a switch in her hand, stood Olga. She waved the switch at them. “I took them all for you, my Jarl!” she elated. “I simply ordered them, with confidence and authority, to kneel in a line, facin away from me, to be bound. They did so!” The Forkbeard laughed at the lovely chattels. “They are slaves,” he said None of the girls even dared to lift her eyes to him. We saw too, to one side, the former Miss Peggy Stevens of Earth,now Honey Cake. Her eyes were joyous, seeing the Fork beard, seeing that he lived. She ran to the Forkbeard, kneeling, putting her head to his feet. She, too, like Pretty Ankle had severed binding fiber knotted about her belly. By the ringof the Kur collar which she wore Ivar Forkbeard jerked he to her feet, so that she stood on her tiptoes, looking up a him. He grinned. “To the pen withyou, Slave,” he said. Sh looked at him, adoringly. “Yes, Master,” she whispered.

“Wait,” said Olga. “Do not permit her to go alone.”

“How is this?” asked Ivar.

“Recollect you, my Jarl,” asked Olga, “the golden girl, she with ringed ears, from the south, who lost in the assessments of beauty to Gunnhild?”

“Well do I do so,” responded Ivar, licking his lips.

“Behold,” laughed Olga. She went to a piece of tent canvas, which, casually, loosely, was thrown over some object. She threw it back. Lying in the dirt, her legs drawn up, her wrists tied behind her back, was the deliciously bodied littlewench,dark-haired, in gold silk, now dirtied and torn, in golden collar, and gold earrings, who had exchanged words with Ivar’s wool-kirtled wenches at the thing. She was the trained girl, the southern silk girl. In fury, she squirmed to her feet.

“I am not a Kur girl,” she cried. Indeed, she did not wear the heavy leather collar, with ring and lock, which Kurii fastened on their female cattle. She wore a collar of gold, and earrings, and, torn and muddied, a slip of golden silk, of the sort with which masters sometimes display their girl slaves. It was incredibly brief. “I have a human master,” she said, angrily, “to whom I demand to be imrnediately returned.”

“We took her, Honey Cake and I,” said Olga.

“Your master,” said Ivar, thinking, recollecting the captain behind whom he had seen her heeling at the thing, “is Rolf of Red Fjord.” Rolf of Red Fjord, I knew, was a minor captain. He, and his men, had participated in the fighting.

“No!” laughed the girl. “After the contest of beauty, in which, through the cheating of the judges, I lost, I was sold to the agent of another, a much greater one than a mere Rolf of Red Fjord. My master is truly powerful! Release me this instant! Fear him!”

Olga, to the girl’s outrage, tore away her golden silk, revealing her to the Forkbeard. “Oh!” she cried, in fury. Gunnhild had won the contest, and won it fairly. But I was forced to admit that the wench now before us, struggling to free her wrists, now revealed to us, luscious, sensuous, short, squirming, infuriated, was incredibly desirable; we considered her body, her face, her obvious intelligence; she would bring a high price; she would make a delicious armful in the furs.

“How is it that you have dared to strip me!” demanded the girl.

“Who is your master?” inquired Ivar Forkbeard.

She drew herself up proudly.She threw back her shoulders. Inher eyes, hot with fury, was the arrogance of the high-owned slave. She smiled insolently, contemptuously. Then she said, “Thorgard of Scagnar.”

“Thorgard of Scagnar!” called a voice, that of Gorm. We turned. Thorgard of Scagnar, raiment torn, bloodied, a broken spear shaft bound behind his back and before his arms, his wrists pulled forward, held at the sides of his rib cage, fastened by a rope across his belly, herded by men with spears, stumbled forward. A length of simple, coarse tent rope, some seven feet in length, had been knotted about his neck. By this tether Gorm dragged him before Ivar Forkbeard.

The golden girl regarded Thorgard of Scagnar with horror. Then, eyes terrified, she regarded Ivar Forkbeard, of Forkbeard’s Landfall. “You are mine now,” said the Forkbeard. Then he said to Honey Cake, “Take my new slave to the pen.”

“Yes, Master,” she laughed. Then she took the golden girl, the southern girl, by the hair. “Come, Slave,” she said. She dragged the bound silk girl, bent over, behind her. “I think,” said Ivar Forkbeard, “I will give her for a month to Gunnhild, and my other wenches. They will enjoy having their own slave. Then, when the month is done, I will turn her over to the crew, and she will be, then, as my other bond-maids, no more or less.”

Ivar turned to regard Thorgard of Scagnar. He stood proudly, bound, feet spread.

Hilda, naked, in her collar, knelt to one side and behind the Forkbeard. She covered herself with her hands as best she could, her head down.

The Forkbeard gestured to the several captive slave girls, loot from Thorgard’s tent, kneeling, wrists bound behind their backs, in their brief, mired silk, in throat coffle, those girls Olga, light-heartedly, had secured for him. “Take them to the pen,” he said to Olga.Olga slapped her switch in the palm of her hand. “On your feet, Slaves,” she said. The girls struggled to their feet. “To the pen, hurry!” she snapped. “You will be given to men!” The girls began to run. As each one passed Olga, she, below the small of the back, was expedited with a sharp stroke of the switch. Then Olga, much pleased, laughing, trotting beside them, herded the running, weeping, stumbling coffle toward the pen.

Now the Forkbeard returned his attention to Thorgard of Scagnar, who regarded him evenly.

“Some of his men escaped,” said Gorm. Then Gorm said, “Shall we strip him?”

“No,” said the Forkbeard.

“Kneel,” said Gorm to Thorgard of Scagnar, roughly. He prodded him with the butt of a spear.

“No,” said the Forkbeard.

The two men faced one another. Then the Forkbeard said, “Cut him loose.”

It was done.

“Give him a sword,”said the Forkbeard.

This, too, was done, and the men, and the girl, too, Hilda, stepped back, clearing a circle for the two men. Thorgard gripped the hilt of the sword. It was cloudy. “You were always a fool,” said Thorgard to the Forkbeard.

“No man is without his weakness,” said Ivar.

Suddenly, crying with rage, his beard wild behind him, Thorgard of Scagnar, a mighty foe, now armed, rushed upon the Forkbeard, who fended away the blow. I could tell the weight of the stroke by the way it fell on the blade, and how the Forkbeard’s blade responded to it. Thorgard was an immensely strong man. I had little doubt that he could beat the arm of a man to weakness, and then, when it was slowed, tired, no longer able to respond with sureness, with reflexive swiftness, in a great attack, he would hack through tothe body. I had seen such men fight before. Once the sheer weight of the attacker’s blows had turned and driven, interposed, his opponent’s sword half through the man’s own neck. But I did not think the Forkbeard would weary. On his own ship he, not unoften, drew oar. He accepted the driving blows, like iron thunderbolts, on his own blade, turning them aside. But he struck little. Hilda, her hand before her mouth, eyes frightened, watched this war of two so mighty combatants. Too, of course, the weight of such blows, particularly with the long, heavy swords of Torvaldsland, take their toll from the striking arm, as well as the fending arm.

Suddenly Thorgard stepped back. The Forkbeard grinned at him. The Forkbeard was not weakened. Thorgard stepped back another step, warily. The Forkbeard followed him. I saw stress in the eyes of Thorgard, and, for the first time, apprehension. He had spent much strength.

“It is I who am the fool,” said Thorgard.

“You could not know,” said the Forkbeard.

Then Ivar Forkbeard, as we followed, step by step, drove Thorgard back. For more than a hundred yards did he drive him back, blow following blow.

They stopped once, regarding one another. There seemed to be now little doubt as to the outcome of the battle.

Then we followed further, even up the slope of the valley, and to a high place, cliffed, which overlooked Thassa.

It puzzled me that the Forkbeard had not yet struck the final blow.

At last, his back to the cliff, Thorgard of Scagnar could retreat no further. He could no longer lift his arm.

Behind him, green and beautifill, stretched Thassa. The sky was cloudy. There was a slight wind, which moved his hair and beard.

“Strike,” said Thorgard.

On Thassa, some hundreds of yards offshore, were ships. One of these I noted was Black Sleen, the ship of Thorgard. Gorm had told us that some of his men had escaped. They had managed to flee to the ship, and make away.

Beside me, agonized, I saw the eyes of Hilda.

“Strike,” said Thorgard.

It would have been a simple blow. The men of Ivar Forkbeaard were stunned.

Ivar returned to us. “I slipped,” he said.

Gorm and others ran to the cliff. Thorgard, seizing his opportunity, had turned and plunged to the waters below. We could see him swimming. From Black Sleen we saw a small boat being lowered, rowing toward him.

“It was careless of me,” admitted the Forkbeard.

Hilda crept to him, and knelt before him. She put her head softly to his feet, and then lifted her head and, tears in her eyes, looked up at him. “A girl is grateful,” she said, “-my Jarl.”

“To the pen with you, Wench,” said the Forkbeard.

“Yes,” she said, “my Jarl! Yes!” She leapt up. When she turned about, the Forkbeard dealt her a mighty blow, swift and stinging, with the flat of his sword. She was, after all, only a common bond-maid. She cried out, startled, sobbing, and stumbled more than a dozen steps before she regained her balance. Then she turned and, sobbing, laughing, cried out joyfully, “I love you, my Jarl! I love you!” He raised the weapon again, flat side threatening her, and she turned and, laughing, sobbing, only one of his girls, fled to the pen.

The Forkbeard and I, and the others, returned to the tents of Thorgard of Scagnar.

Svein Blue Tooth was there. We saw, in a long line, shackled, fur matted, Kurii being herded with spear butts through the camp. “The bridge of jewels worked well,” said Svein Blue Tooth to Ivar Forkbeard. “Hundreds, fleeing, were slain by our archers. Arrows of Torvaldsland found the slaughter pleasing.”

“Did any escape?” inquired Ivar.

The Blue Tooth shrugged. “Several,” he said, “but I think the men of Torvaldsland now need fear little the return of any Kur army.”

I thought what he said doubtless true. Single, or scattered, Kuriimight, as before, forage south, but I did not think they would again regroup in vast numbers. They had learned and so, too, had the men of Torvaldsland, that men could stand against them. This fact, red with blood of both beasts and men, had been demonstrated in a remote valley of the north. I smiled to myself. The demonstration would not have been lost, either, on the advanced Kurii of the steel worlds. It was ironic. I, Tarl Cabot, who had abandoned the service of Priest-Kings, had yet, in this far place, been instrumental in their work. The Forkbeard and I, it had been, who had found the arrow of war in the Torvaldsberg, who had touched it to other arrows, which, in hundreds of villages and camps, over thousands of square pasangs of rugged, inlet-cleft terrain, had been carried to the free men of the north, that they might fetch their weapons, rally and, shoulder to shoulder, do battle. And, too, I had fought. It was strange, as it seemed to me, that it should be so. I thought of golden Misk, the Priest-King, of once, long ago, when his antennae had touched the palms of my uplifted hands, and Nest Trust had been pledged between us. Then I dismissed the thought.

I saw, to one side, large Hrolf, from the East, who had fought with us, he leaning on his spear.

We knew little of him. But he had fought well; What else need one know of a man?

“What is to be done with these captive Kurii?” I asked Svein Blue Tooth, indicating the line of imprisoned beasts, some wounded, being driven past us, survivors of the slaughter on the Bridge of Jewels.

“We shall break the teeth from their jaws,” he said. “We shall tear the claws from their paws. They, suitably chained will be used as beasts of burden.”

The great plan of the Others, of the Kurii of the steel worlds, their most profound and brilliant probe of the defenses of Priest-Kings, had failed. Native Kurii, bred from ship’s survivors over centuries, would not, it seemed, if limited to the primitive weapons permitted men, be capable of conquering Gor, isolating the Priest-Kings in the Sardar, until they could be destroyed, or, alternatively, be used to lure the Priest-Kings into a position where they would be forced to betray their own weapons laws, arming men, which would be dangerous, or utilizing their own significant technology, thereby, perhaps, revealing the nature, location and extent oftheir power, information that might then be exploited at a later date by the strategists of the steel worlds. The plan had been brilliant, though careless of the value, if any, placed on Kurii life. I supposed native Kurii did not command the respect of the educated, trained Kurii of the ships. They were regarded, perhaps, as a different, lesser, or inferior breed, expendable in the strategems of their betters. The failure of the Kurii invasion, of course, moved the struggle to a new dimension. I wondered what plans now, alternate plans doubtless formed years or centuries ago, would now be implemented. Perhaps, already, such plans were afoot. I looked at the ragged line of defeated, shackled Kurii. They had failed. But already, I suspected, Kurii, fresh, brilliant, calculating, masters in the steel worlds, in their command rooms, their map rooms and strategy rooms, were, even before the ashes in this remote valley in thenorth had cooled, engaged in the issuance of orders. I looked about at the field of battle, under the cloudy sky. New coded instructions, doubtless, had already been exchanged among the distant steel worlds. The Kur is a tenacious beast. It seems well equipped by its remote, savage evolution to be a dominant life form. Ivar Forkbeard and Svein Blue Tooth might congratulate themselves on their victory. I, myself, more familiar with Kurii, with the secret wars of Priest-Kings, suspected that men had not yet heard the last of such beasts.

But these thoughts were for others, not for Bosk of Port Kar, not for Tarl Red Hair.

Let others fight for Priest-Kings. Let others do war. Let others concern themselves with such struggles. If I had had any duty in these matters, long ago I had discharged it.

Suddenly, for the first time since I had left Port Kar, my left arm, my left leg, the left side of my body, felt suddenly cold, and numb. For an instant I could not move them. I nearly fell. Then it passed. My forehead was covered with sweat. The poison of the blade of Tyros lurked yet in my system. I had come north to avenge the slaying of the wench Telima. This resolution, thehatred, had driven me. Yet it seemed I had failed. In my pouch now lay the armlet, which Ho-Hak had given me in Port Kar, that found where Telima had been attacked. I had failed.

“Are you all right?” asked Ivar.

“Yes,” I said.

“I have found your bow, and your arrows,” said Gorm. “They were among weapons in the loot.”

“I am grateful,” I said. I strung the bow and drew it, and unstrung it. I slipped the quiver, with its arrows, flight and sheaf, over my left shoulder.

“In four days, when supplies can be gathered,” said Svein Blue Tooth, “we shall have a great feast, for this has been a great victory.”

“Yes,” I said, “let us have a great feast, for this has been a great victory.”