which would kill a man. Rollo disappeared within the small room. From my right I
heard the scream of a bond-maid. I saw a Kur leash her. He pulled her
struggling, by the neck, choking, to a place to the left of the door. There
there waited another Kur, who held in his tentacled hand the leashes of more
than twenty bond-maids, who knelt, terrified, about its legs. The Kur who had
leashed his catch then handed the leash to the other Kur, who accepted it, addmg
it to the others. The girl knelt swiftly among the others. I knew human females
were regarded as delicacies by Kurii. The Kur who had taken the girl then took
another leash from the interior of his shield, where there were several wrapped
about the shield straps; and surveyed the hall A girl, kneeling in the dirt,
near the long fire, saw him, and ran screaming away. Methodically, moving her
toward a corner of the hall, leash swinging, he followed her. Behind me I heard
the blows of axes. I fought to free myself of the throng. The axes behind me
were the axes of men, and strikin on wood. Turning I saw Svein Blue Tooth and
four others trying to splinter their way from the hall. They had difficulty,
though, for many men pressed against them I saw Ivar Forkbeard nearby. He had
not chosen to escape. His sword was drawn, but it would prove of little efficacy
against the great metal shields, the sweeping axes of the Kurii. They could cut
a man down before he could approach them, even with the long blade of the North.
The Forkbeard looked about. There had been more than a thousand men in the hall
Surely at least two or three hundred lay dead, most at the walls, at the foot of
the walls, under the weapons which, for the most part, they had been unable to
touch 1 saw the Kur who had pursued the bond-maid now again gomg toward that
holding area near the door. On her back, then on her side, then on her stomach,
rolling and squirming eyes wild, her fingers hooked inside the collar, trying to
keep it from choking her, was dragged the bond-maid. Then her leash was
surrendered into the keeping of the Kur who held the others, and then the first
Kur, leaving his prize in the care of the other, turned about, to hunt yet
another delicacy from the herd within the hall The Kurii now, on both sides,
stood between us and the weapons. The side doors, leading from the hall, were
now all closed to us. Kurii, too, stood before the entrance to the hall, axes
ready, eyes fiaming. We were, some six or seven hundred men, crowded together,
effectively surrounded. At our backs was the western wall of the hall. "Clear
rooml" cried Svein Blue Tooth. "Let us use our axes!" Trying to draw back from
the Kurii, approaching slowly great, blood axes ready, terrified men pushed
back, further and further. I managed to free myself from the crowd, and take a
position on its fringe, between men and Kurii. If I were cut down I would prefer
it to be in a situation where I might move freely. I unsheathed my sword. I saw
the lips of one of the Kurii drawing back. "Your blade is useless," said Ivar
Forkbeard, now standing at my side. The Kurii crept closer. I heard a scream
from a height, and, looking up, saw a human thrown from the balcony which ringed
the hall, some thirty feet above the dirt floor, some ten feet below the roof
beams. I saw then that Kurii held the balcony. I did not think they would long
delay finishing us. The smoke was thick in the hall. Men choked. Men coughed. I
saw, too, the nostrils of the Kurii closing to narrow slits. Sparks fell in
their fur. I brushed as;de one of the hanging vessels of bronze, a
tharlarion-oil lamp which, on its chain, hung from the ceiling, some forty feet
above. It is such that it can be raised ancl lowered by a side chain. "Spears!"
cried Ivar. "We need spears!" But there were few spears in the fear-maddened,
terrified crowd of men cringing back from the beasts. What spears there were
could not be thrown because of the press. To one side I saw the Kur with the
golden band on its arm. At the side of its mouth were saliva and blood, the fur
matted. It looked at me. I knew then it was my enemy. We had found one another.
An ax struck toward me. It had been wielded by the Kur whose lips had drawn
back. I darted to one side, the ax buried itself in the dirt, I found myself
within the beast's guard, I thrust the blade, to its hilt, into the chest of the
beast. It gave a puzzled snarl which I heard, jerking the blade free, only as I
leaped back. The other Kurii looked at it, puzzled; then it fell into the dirt.
There was silence, save for the crackling of flames. The horror of what I had
done then was understood by the leader of the Kurii. A Kur has been killed.
"Attack!" cried Ivar Forkbeard. "Attack! Are you docile tarsk that you dare not
attack? Men of Torvaldsland, attack!" But no man moved. Mere humans, they dared
not set themselves agamst KurlL They would rather, helpless, await their
slaughter. They could not move, so struck with terror they were. The body of the
dead Kur, inert, lay heavy, crooked, in the dirt. The bloodied ax was to one
side. The shield arm was twisted in one of the straps. The other strap was
broken. The eyes of the leader of the Kurii, whom I knew to be my enemy, blazed
upon me. His horror, seeing his fallen brother of the killing blood, had now
become rage, outrage. I, one of the herd, of the cattle, had dared to strike one
of the master species, a superior form of life. A Kur had been killed. I set
myself. Again in the hall of Svein Blue Tooth rang the blood shriek of the
Kurii. On each side of the leader, plunging toward us, howling, swept Kurii.
Too, they pressed in from the sides, axes falling. I do not choose to speak in
detail of what followed. Kurii themselves, axes like sheets of iron rain,
shattered that fearful throng, splitting it into hundreds of screaming fragments
of terror. A man not more than a yard from me was cut half in two, from the head
to the belt, in one stroke. I managed, as the Kur was twisting his ax, trying to
free it of the body, to drive my blade through its neck, under the left ear. I
saw Ivar Forkbeard, his sword gone, lost in the body of a nearby Kur, his knife
in his hand, one hand thrusting away and upward the jaws of a Kur, repeatedly
plunge his knife into the huge chest of the beast. There was uneven footing in
the hall. We slipped in the blood. It filled the pit of the long fire. It was
splashed about our trousers and turucs. Near one wall I yanked a spear free from
the hands of a fallen man-at-arms. Momentarily I sickened at the sight of the
exposed lungs, sucking air, the hand scratching at the wall beside him. I hurled
the spear. It had a shaft of seven foot Gorean, a head of tapered bronze, some
eighteen inches in length. At close range it can pierce a southern shield,
shatter its point through a seven-inch beam. It passed half through the body of
a Kur. Its ax fell. My act had saved a man. But, in the next instant, he had
fallen beneath the ax of another. I pressed my back against the wall. A beam
fell, burning, from the roof at the southeastern corner of the hall. I heard
bond-maids screaming. Kurii looked upward. Their nostrils were shut against the
smoke. The eyes of many of th
em, commonly black-pupiled, yellowish in the
cornea, seemed red, swollen, veined. I saw one, suflering in the smoke and
sparks, look up from feeding, and then again thrust his head down to the meat,
clothes torn away from the chest, on which it was feeding. I saw Ivar Forkbeard,
with a spear, set himself against the charge of an unarmed Kur. He set the butt
of the spear deep in the earth behind him. The spear's shaft gouged a trench six
inches deep behind him, and then stopped, and the Kur, biting in the air, eyes
like fire, backed away, and fell backward; Ivar leaped away as another ax sought
him. I saw, across the room, the leader of the Kurii, it with the golden band on
its arm. I recalled its words on the platform of the assembly, in the field of
the thing. In rage it had cried, "A thousand of you can die beneath the claws of
a single Kur!" There were perhaps now no more than a hundred or a hundred and
fifty men left alive in the hall. "Follow me!" cried Svein Blue Tooth. His ax,
and those of his men, had shattered through the rear of the hall. Like
panic-stricken urts thirty-five or forty men thrust through the hole, sometimes
jamming themselves momentarily within it, some tearing the flesh from their
bodies and the sides of their faces on the splintered wood. "Hurry! Hurry!"
cried the Blue Tooth. His garments were half torn from him but, still, about his
neck, on its chain, was the tooth of the Hunjer whale, dyed blue, by which men
in Torvaldsland knew him. Svein thrust two more of his men through the aperture.
Kurii were between me and the opening. Ivar Forkbeard, and others, too, were
similarly cut off. Another beam fell, flaming and smoking from the roof,
striking into the dirt floor, and leaning against the wall. The hangings which
had decorated the hall were now gone, burned away, the walls scorched behind
them. The only portion of the wall that was clearly afire, however, and
threatening to cave in, was the eastern edge of the southern wall. I saw ten
Kurii leap to the back of the hall, to where Svein Blue Tooth and his men had
made their opening, to prevent the escape of others. They stood before the
opening, axes lifted, snarling. One man who approached too closely was slashed
to the spine with a sweep of the bluish ax. One who begged mercy in the center
of the hall was cut in twain, the blade of the ax driving into the very dirt
itself, emerging covered with dirt and blood, streaked with ash. "The lamps!"
cried the Forkbeard to me. "Red Hair," he cried, "the lamps!" Another beam from
the roof, burning, dropped heavily to the floor of the hall. I saw the Kur who
held the leashes of the caught bondmaids dragging the girls from the hall. He
held the leashes, several in each hand, of more than forty catches. The collars
were of thick leather, with metal insert locks, flat tnetal bolts slipping,
locking, into spring catches; when closed, two rectangular metal plates
adjoined; sewn into each collar was a light, welded metal ring; about this was
closed the leash snap; the action of the leash snap was mechanical but,
apparently, it was beyond the strength of a woman to open it. The leashes were
some fifteen feet in length, allowing in this radius one Kur to hold several
captives at once. The Kur left the hall. Screaming, stumbling, helplessly, the
caught women followed their beast master. I saw Kurii, methodically, blow after
blow, striking the fallen, lest any might have sought to hide among the dead.
Some men, tangled in the bodies, screamed, the axes falling upon them. The
wounded, too, were methodically dispatched. I observed the patterns; they were
regular, linear, of narrow width; no body was missed. The Kurii, I realized,
were efficient; they were, of course, intelligent; they were, of course, like
men, rational animals. One man leaped screaming to his feet and ran. He was cut
down immediately, running almost headlong into a Kur, one of the Kurii set
before the killing line, to intercept such fugitives. Men, it seemed to me,
could be no match for such animals. Kurii now encircled the group of men near
the western wall of the hall. Most of them moaned, crying out with misery; many
fell to their knees. I saw two Kurii turn in my direction. I saw Ivar Forkbeard
standing among the huddled men near the western waJl of the hall. He was easily
visible, being one of the few standing. He looked red and terrible in the
reflection of the flames; the veins on his forehead looked like red cables; his
eyes, almost like those of the Kurii themselves, blazed. His long sword, now
again in his hand, which he had recovered from the body of the Kur in which he
had left it, was again bloodied, and freshly so; his left sleeve was torn away;
there were claw marks on his neck. "On your feet!" he cried to the men. "On your
feet! Do battle!" But even those who stood seemed numb with terror. "Are you of
Torvaldsland?" he asked. "Do battle! Do battle!" But no man dared to move. In
the presence of Kurii they seemed only cattle. I saw the lips of Kurii draw
back. I saw axes lift. Then again the Forkbeard's voice, through the smoke, the
sparks, suddenly half choking, drifted across the hall to me. "The lamps!" he
cried again, as he had before. "Red Hair," he cried, "the lamps!" Then I
understood him, as I had not before. The tharlarion-oil lamps, on their chains,
hanging from rings on the roof beams! The apertures in the ceiling of the hall,
through which smoke might pass! He had intended that I would escape. But I had
played Kaissa with him. "First," I called, "the Forkbeard!" I would not leave
without him. We had played Kaissa. "You are a fool!" he cried. "I have not yet
learned to break theJarl's Ax's gambit," I reJoined. I sheathed my sword. I
leaned back, casually against the wall. My arms were folded. "Fool!" he cried.
He looked about, at the men who could not fight, who could not move, who could
not stir. He slammed his sword into its sheath and leaped up, seizing one of the
lamps on its chain. The two Kurii who had turned toward me now lifted their
axes. I turned over the table, behind which I stood. The two axes hit the heavy
beams simultaneously, exploding wood in great chunks between the walls,
shattering it as high as the ceiling itself. I vaulted the table. I heard the
startled snarls of the Kurii. Then I had my hands on one of the large, swinging,
bronze lamps. Oil spilled, flamed from the wick. I swung, wildly. My right
sleeve caught afire. I heard a Kur below me scream with pain; I looked down, and
hauled myself up to avoid the stroke of an ax; one Kur reeled about; the left
side of its furred head, wet, drenched in oil, was aflame; it screamed
hideously; it clawed at its left eye. Hand over hand I crawled up the chain;
then the chain shook, wildly; I struggled to hold it; the fire at my right
sleeve snapped back and forth; I lost my breath; I feared my neck would break;
blood was on the chain; I held it; Kurii howled beneath me; I moved further up
the chain; then the chain stretched down, taut; an ax flew wheeling past, half
cutting into one of the crossbeams in the roof; I climbed higher; then,
suddenly, I realized why the chain had been pulled taut; the beam, above me,
creaked; the chain was no
w tight, like a cable; the links strained, grating on
one another; it now bore, besides mine, the weight of a Kur, rapidly climbing;
the ring above me, through which the chain passed, pulled part way from the
wood; I scrambled up the last few feet of the chain; I threw my arm over the
beam; I felt claws seize at my leg, then close about it; I released the beam,
screaming the war cry of Ko-ro-ba, falling tearing and ripping with fingers and
teeth about the neck and head of the startled Kur; stiffened fingers, like
daggers, drove at its eyes; my teeth tore at the veins in its wrist, in the arm
that held the chain; in that instant the Kur realized, and, I realized, too, for
the first time, that there were on the surface of Gor animals as savage as its
kind, slighter animals, smaller, weaker, but no less vicious, in their way no
less terrible; fending me away, screaming, biting, it released me, but I clung
about its shoulders and neck; I bit through half of its ear; I pulled myself up
to the beam; an orifice, red, projecting fangs like white nails, stretched below
me; I drew the sword and, as it climbed, eyes bleeding, ear torn, after me, I
cut away its hand; it fell back, growing smaller, until it struck heavily on the
reeded earth, stained with its churned, reddish mud, forty feet below; it broke
its neck; I tore away the flarning sleeve of my garment and thrust it, on the
sword point, into the face of the next Kur; the hand of the first still clung to
the chain, with its six multiple jointed fingers; the Kur, with a shake of its
head, dislodged the burning cloth and pulled its pierced face from the sword; it
bit at the sword, cutting its mouth; it reached to the beam; I cut at the
fingers; it lost its balance; it, too, fell backward. "Come!" I heard. I saw the
Forkbeard on a nearby beam. "Hurry!" he cried. I choked in the smoke. I thrust
at the next Kur, driving the blade through its ear into the brain. Part of the
roof fell away, tumbling burning to the ground below. "Hurry!" I heard, as
though from far away. I cut down at the next Kur. It snarled, grasping for me.
The ring, through which the chain passed, unable to bear longer the weight of
Kurii, splintered free of the wood. I saw the ring and chain dart downward. Four
Kurii climbing, two leaping free, two clinging to the chain, fell to the earth
Norman, John - Gor 09 - Marauders of Gor.txt Page 27