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

by Marauders of Gor [lit]

  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