Norman, John - Gor 09 - Marauders of Gor.txt

by Marauders of Gor [lit]

  anvil, with a chain. The southern collar, commonly, lacks such a ring; the

  southern ankle ring, however, has one, and sometimes two, one in the front and

  one in the back. "Will you not try to win Leah, Master?" she taunted. "Are you

  trained?" I asked. She seemed startled. "In Ar," she whispered. "But surely you

  would not make me use my training in the north." I looked upon her. She seemed

  the perfect solution to my problem. The gift of a female is sufficiently trivial

  that the honor of the Forkbeard as my host would not be in the least threatened;

  further, this was a desirable wench, whose cuddly slave body would be much

  relished by the Forkbeard and his crew; further, being trained, she would be a

  rare and exquisite treat for the rude giants of Torvaldsland; beyond this, of

  course, commanded, she would impart her skills to the best of her abilities to

  his other girls. "You will do," I told her. "I do not understand," she said,

  stepping back. The chain slid on the wood. "Your name, and accent," I said,

  "bespeak an Earth origin." "Yes," she whispered. "Where are you from?" I asked.

  "Canada," she whispered. "You were once a woman of Earth," I said. "Yes," she

  said. "But now you are only a Gorean slave girl," I told her. "I am well aware

  of that, Master," she said. I turned away from her. The target in the shooting

  was about six inches in width, at a range of about one hundred yards. With the

  great bow, the peasant bow, this is not difficult work. Many marksmen, warriors,

  peasants, rencers, could have matched my shooting. It was, of course, quite

  unusual in Torvaldsland. I put twenty sheaf arrows into the target, until it

  bristled with wood and the feathers of the Vosk gull. When I retrieved my

  arrows, to the shouting of the men, the pounding of their bows on their shields,

  the girl had been already unchained from the block. I gave my name to the

  presiding official. Talmits would be officially awarded tomorrow. I accepted his

  congratulations. My girl prize knelt at my feet. I looked down upon her "What

  are you?" I asked. "Only a Gorean slave girl, Master," she said. "Do not forget

  it," I told her. "I shall not, Master," she whispered. "Stand," I told her. She

  stood and I lashed her wrists tightly together behillc her back. It was then

  that the announcement was heard. It swept like oil, aflame in the wind, through

  the crowds of the thing Men looked at one another. Many grasped their weapons

  more tightly. "A Kur," it was said, "One of the Kurii, would address the

  assembly of the thing!" The girl looked at me, pulling against the fiber that

  bound her wrists. "Have her delivered to the tent of Thorgeir of Ax Glacier," I

  told the presiding official. "Tell him that she is a gift to him from Tarl Red

  Hair." "It will be done," said the official. He signaled two burly thralls, each

  of whom seized her by one arm. "Deliver her to the tent of Thorgeir of Ax

  Glacier," he told them. "Tell him that she is a gift to him from Tarl Red-Hair."

  The girl was turned about, each of the thralls holding one of her arms. She

  looked once over her shoulder. Then, between the thralls, moaning, crying out,

  stumbling, a gift being delivered, she was thrust toward the tent of he who was

  known at the thing as Thorgeir of Ax Glacier. My eyes and those of the official

  who had presided at the archery contest met. "Let us hasten to the place of the

  assembly," he said. Together we hurried from the field where I had won the

  talmit in archery, and a girl, to the place of the assembly. Chapter 11 The

  Torvaldsberg It lifted its head. It stood on the small hill, sloping above the

  assembly field. This hill was set with stones, rather in the manner of t~rraces.

  On these stones, set in semicircular lines, like terraces, stood high men and

  minor jarls, and rune-priests, and the guard of Svein Blue Tooth. Just below the

  top of the small hill, cut into the hill, there was a level, stone-paved

  platform, some twelve feet by twelve feet in dimension. On this platform stood

  Svein Blue Tooth, with two high men, officers, lieutenants, to the jarL The

  thing, its head lifted, surveyed the assembly of free men. The pupils of its

  eyes, in the sunlight, were extremely small and black. They were like points in

  the yellowish green cornea. I knew that, in darkness, they could swell, like

  dark moons, to fill almost the entire optic orifice, some three or four inches

  in width. Evolution, on some distant, perhaps vanished world, had adapted this

  life form for both diurnial and nocturnal hunting. Doubtless, like the cat, it

  hunted when hungry, and its efficient visual capacities, like those of the cats,

  meant that there was no time of the day or night when it might not be feared.

  Its head was approximately the width of the chest of a large man. It had a flat

  snout, with wide nostrils. Its ears were large, and pointed. They lifted from

  the side of its head, listening, and then lay back against the furred sides

  ofthe head. Kurii, I had been told, usually, in meeting men, laid the ears back

  against the sides of their heads, to increase their resemblance to humans. The

  ears are often laid back, also, incidentally, in hostility or anger, and,

  always, in its attacks. It is apparently physiologically impossible for a Kur to

  attack without its shoulders hunching, its claws emerging, and its ears lying

  back against the head. The nostrils of the beast drank in what information it

  wished, as they, like its eyes, surveyed the throng. The trailing capacities of

  the Kurii are not as superb as those of the sleen, but they were reputed to be

  the equal of those of larls. The hearing, similarly, is acute. Again it is

  equated with that of the larl, and not the sharply-sensed sleen. There was

  little doubt that the day vision of the Kurii was equivalent to that of men, if

  not superior, and the night vision, of course, was infinitely superior; their

  sense of smell, too, of course, was inccmparably superior to that of men, and

  their sense of hearing as well. Moreover, they, like men, were rational. Like

  men, they were a single-brained organism, limited by a spinal column. Their

  intelligence, by Priest-Kings, though the brain was much larger, was rated as

  equivalent to that of men, ar.d showed similar random distributions throughout

  gene pools. What made them such dreaded foes was not so much their intelligence

  or, on the steel worlds, their technological capacities, as their

  aggressiveness, their persistence their emotional commitments, their need to

  populate and expa nd, their innate savagery. The beast was approximalely nine

  feet in height; I conjectured its weight in the neighborhood of eight or nine

  hundred pounds. Interestingly, Priest-Kings, who are not visually oriented

  organisms, find little difference between Kurii and men. To me this seems

  preposterous, for ones so wise as Priest-Kings, but, in spite of its obvious

  falsity, Priest-Kings regard the Kurii and men as rather sirnilar, almost

  equivalent species. One difference they do remark between the human and the Kur,

  and that is that the human, commonly, has an inhibition against killing. This

  inhibition the Kur lacks. "Fellow rational creatures!" called the Kur. It was

  difficult at first to understand it. It was horrifying, t
oo. Suppose that, at

  some zoo, the tiger, in its cage, should look at you, and, in its rumbles, its

  snarls, its growls, its half roars, you should be able, to your horror, to

  detect crude approximatlons of the phonemes of your native tongue, and you

  should hear it speaking to you, looking at you, uttering intelligible sentences.

  I shuddered. "Fellow rational creatures!" called the Kur. The Kur has two rows

  of fangs. Its mouth is large enough to take into it the head of a full-grown

  man. Its canines, in the front row of fangs, top and bottom, are long. When it

  closes its mouth the upper two canines project over the lower lip and jaw. Its

  tongue is long and dark, the interior of its mouth reddish. "Men of

  Torvaldsland," it called, "I speak to you." Behind the Kur, to one side, stood

  two other Kurii. They, like the first, were fearsome creatures. Each carried a

  wide, round shield, of iron, some four feet in diameter. Each, too, carried a

  great, double-bladed iron ax, which, from blade tip to blade tip, was some two

  feet in width. The handle of the ax was of carved, green needle wood, round,

  some four inches in diameter. The axes were some seven or eight feet in height.

  The speaker was not armed, save by the natural ferocity of his species. As he

  spoke, his claws were retracted. About his left arm, which was some seven feet

  in length, was a spiral golden armlet. It was his only adornment. The two Kurii

  behind him, each, had a golden pendant hangingfrom the bottom of each ear. The

  prehensile paws, or hands, of the Kurii are six-digited and multiple jointed.

  The legs are thick and short. In spite of the shortness of the legs the Kur can,

  when it wishes, by utilizing its upper appendages, in the manner of a prairie

  simian, like the baboon, move vvith great rapidity. It becomes, in running, what

  is, in effect, a four-footed animal. It has the erect posture, permitting brain

  development and facilitating acute binocular vision, of a biped. This posture,

  too, of course, greatly increases the scanning range of the visual sensors. But,

  too, its anatomy permits it to function, in flight and attack, much as a

  four-legged beast. For short distances it can outrun a fullgrown tarsk. It is

  also said to possess great stamina, but of this I am much less certain. Few

  animals, which have not been trained, have, or need, stamina. An exception would

  be pack hunters, like the wolves or hunting dogs of Earth. "We come in peace,"

  said the Kur. The men of Torvaldsland, in the assembly field, looked to one

  another. "Let us kill them" I heard one whisper to another. "In the north, in

  the snows," said the Kur, "there is gathering of my kind." The men stirred

  uneasily. I listened intently. I knew that Kurii did not, for the most part,

  inhabit areas frequented by men. On the other hand, the Kurii on the platform,

  and other Kurii I had encountered, had been darkfurred, either brownish, or

  brownish red or black. I wondered if it were only the darker furred Kurii that

  roamed southward. But if these Kurii on the platform were snowadapted, their fur

  did not suggest this. I wondered if they might be from the steel ships, either

  recently, or within too few generations for a snow-adaption pattern to have been

  developed. If the Kurii were sufficiently successful, of course, there would be

  no particular likelihood of evolution selecting for snow adaption. Too, it could

  be that, in summer, the Kurii shed white fur and developed, in effect, a summer

  coat. Still I regarded it unlikely that these Kurii were from as far north as

  his words might suggest. "How many gather?" asked Svein Blue Tooth, who was on

  the platform with the Kurii. Blue Tooth was a large man, bearded, wlth a broad,

  heavy face. He had blue eyes, and was blond haired. His hair came to his

  shoulders, There was a knife scar under his left eye. He seemed a shrewd, highly

  intelligent, competent, avaricious man. I thought him probably an effective

  jarl. He wore a collar of fur, dyed scarlet, and a long cloak, over the left

  shoulder, of purple-dyed fur of the sea sleen. He wore beneath his cloak yellow

  wool, and a great belt of glistening black, with a gold buckle, to which was

  attached a scabbard of oiled, black leather; in this scabbard was a sword, a

  sword of Torvaldsland, a long sword, with a j eweled pommel, with double guard.

  "We come in peace," said the Kur. "How many gather?" pressed Blue Tooth. About

  his neck, from a fine, golden chain, pierced, hung the tooth of a Hunjer whale,

  dyed blue. "As many as the stones of the beaches," said the Kur "as many as the

  needles on the needle trees." "What do you want?" called one of the men from the

  field. "We come in peace," said the Kur. "They do not have white fur," said I to

  Ivar Forkbeard, standing now beside me. "It is not likely that they come from

  the country of snows." "Of course not," said the Forkbeard. "Should this

  information not be brought to the attention of Svein Blue Tooth?" I asked. "Blue

  Tooth is no fool," said the Forkbeard. "There is not a man here who believes

  Kurii to gather in the country of snows. There is not enough game to support

  many in such a place.' "Then how far would they be away?" I asked "It is not

  known," said the Forkbeard. "You know us, unfortunately," said the Kur, to the

  assembly, "only by our outcasts, wretches driven from our caves, unfit for the

  gentilities of civilization, by our diseased and our misfits and our insane, by

  those who, in spite of our efforts and our kindness, did not manage to learn our

  ways of peace and harmony." The men of Torvaldsland seemed stunned. I looked at

  the great axes in the hands of the two Kurii who accompanied the speaker. "Too

  often have we met in war and killing," said the speaker. "But, in this, you,

  too, are much to blame. You have, cruelly, and without compunction, hunted us

  and, when we sought comradeship with you as brothers, as fellow rational

  creatures, you have sought to slay us." "Kill them," muttered more than one man.

  "They are Kurrii." "Even now," said the Kur, the skin drawing back from its

  fangs, "there are those among you who wish our death, who urge our destruction."

  The men were silent. The Kur had heard and understood their speech, though he

  stood far from us, and above us, on the platform of the assembly, that platform

  cut into the small, sloping hill over the assembly field. I admired the

  acuteness of its hearing. Again the skin drew back from its fangs. I wondered if

  this were an attempt to simulate a human smile. "It is in friendship that we

  come." It looked about. "We are a simple, peaceful folk," it said, "interested

  in the pursuit of agriculture. Svein Blue Tooth threw back his head and roared

  with laughter. I regarded him then as a brave man. Beside me, Ivar Forkbeard,

  too, laughed, and then others. I wondered if the stomach or stomachs of the

  Kurii could digest vegetable food. The assembly broke into laughter. It filled

  the field. The Kur did not seem angry at the laughter. I wondered if it

  understood laughter. To the Kur it might be only a human noise, as meaningless

  to him as the cries of whales to us. "You are amused," it said. The Kurii, then,

  had some understanding of laugher Its own lips then drew back, revealing the

  fangs. I th
en understood this clearly as a smile. That the Kurii possessed a

  sense of humor did not much reassure me as to their nature. I wondered rather at

  what sort of situations it would take as its object. The cat, if rational, might

  find amusement in the twitching and trembling of the mouse which it is

  destroying, particle by particle. That a species laughs bespeaks its

  intelligence, its capacity to reason, not its goodness, not its harrnlessness.

  Like a knife; reason is innocent; like a knife, its application is a function of

  the hand that grasps it, the energies and will which drive it. "We were not

  always simple farmers," said the Kur. It opened its mouth, that horrid orifice,

  lined with its double rows of white, heavy, curved fangs. "No," it said, "once

  we were hunters, and our bodies still bear, as reminders, the stains of our

  cruel past." It dropped its head. "We are by these," it said, and then it lifted

  its right paw, suddenly exposing the claws, "and these, reminded that we must be

  resolute in our attempts to overcome a sometimes recalcitrant nature." Then it

  regarded the assembly. "But you must not hold our past against us. What is

  important is the present. What is important is not what we were, but what we

  are, what we are striving to become. We now wish only to be simple farmers,

  tilling the soil and leading lives of rustic tranquility." The men of

  Torvaldsland looked at one another. "How many of you have gathered?" asked Svein

  Blue Tooth again. "As many," said the Kur, "as the stones on the beaches, as

  many as the needles on the needle trees." "What do you want?" he asked. The Kur

  turned to the assembly. "It is our wish to traverse your country in a march

  southward." "It would be madness," said the Forkbeard to me, "to permit large

  numbers of Kurii into our lands." "We seek empty lands to the south, to farm,"

  said the Kur. "We will take only as much of your land as the width of our march,

  and for only as long as it takes to pass. "Your request seems reasonable," said

  Svein Blue Tooth. "We shall deliberate." The Kur stepped back with the other

  Kurii. They spoke together in one of the languages of the Kurii, for there are,

  I understood, in the steel worlds, nations and races of such beasts. I could

  hear little of what they said. I could detect, however, that it more resembled