by John Norman
There were hundreds of Kurii between us and the ships.
Ivar and I had looked at one another.
We now understood the meaning of the Kur we had seen on Black Sleen, long ago, who had accompanied Thorgard of Scagnar into his holding. We had seen the beast from the darkness, from our longboat, when we were escaping Scagnar, Thorgard's daughter hooded and secured, bound hand and foot, lying between our feet.
Kurii are land animals, not fond of water. In their march south, the fleet of Thorgard of Scagnar would cover their western flank. More importantly, it would give them the means of communication with the Gorean islands, and, if desirable, a means whereby their invasion might be accomplished. The fleet, further, could, if necessary, provision the advancing horde and, if necessary, if danger should threaten, evacuate large portions of it.
The Kurii march would have its sea arm, its naval support. Kurii, as I have indicated, are rational animals. The strategies seemed elementary, but sound. The full extent of the strategy, however, I suspected, was known only on the steel worlds, the steel worlds in space on which it had doubtless been constructed and from which, perhaps, it might be conducted.
If Kurii native to Gor could, within the laws of Priest-Kings, not violating technology restrictions, much advance the Kurii cause on the planet, those on the ships had little to lose and much to gain. It was even possible that Priest-Kings, a usually consistent form of life, might permit the Kurii conquest of Gor rather than surrender their accustomed neutrality.
I could imagine the words on Misk's translator, one after the other, ticked off mechanically, "We have given our word." But if Priest-Kings, eventually, should halt the invasion, that, too, might be of interest to the Kurii of the steel ships, remote, prowling outside the fifth ring, that of the planet on Earth called Jupiter, that on Gor called Hersius, after one of Ar's legendary heroes. Not only would the decision to halt the invasion be in violation of the practices and commitments of Priest-Kings, which would doubtless create dissension in the Nest, producing a leverage the Kurii might be able to exploit, but, if the invasion were halted, it being a large movement, complex, its termination might provide useful data on the nature and disposition of the powers of the Priest-Kings.
It might provide the equivalent of drawing a sniper's fire, using a dupe or fool to do so, in order to ascertain his position. In the Nest War, when the Priest-Kings had been locked in internecine warfare, their powers had been severely reduced and disrupted. The Nest itself had been severely damaged. I knew that ships of Priest-Kings flew, but I knew little of their numbers, or power, or of the retained power in general of the delicate, tall, golden masters of Gor. I thought it quite likely that they would be unable to resist a full-scale invasion.
Probes, I had learned from Misk, had become increasingly frequent. Slave raids on Earth, I recalled, had become a matter of course, routine. These were small matters in the scope of planetary politics but were indicative. In just the past few days we had encountered, even in far Torvaldsland, two Earth females, suitably collared, Peggy Stevens of Connecticut, Honey Cake, and the girl, Leah, of Canada.
The movements of Kurii and their allies were becoming bolder. Their boldest move had begun most recently, the gathering of the Gorean Kurii, the initiation of the march to the south, the incursion into lands of human habitation, the beginning of the invasion from the north. This was the boldest and most fearful probe of the Kurii of the ships, directed toward humans but doubtless, in fact, a testing of the will and nature of Priest-Kings their true foes. If Priest-Kings permitted the conquest of Gor, perhaps over a generation or two, by Kurii, they would have lost the security of their own base; they would become an island in the midst of a hostile sea; it would then be a matter of time until the end, until adequate weaponry could be smuggled to Gor, or built upon it, to destroy them.
This would now be no simple matter of policing primitive weapons, crude attempts at the art of gunnery or explosives, but of protecting themselves against perfected weapons of great technological power. Sooner or later, if Gor fell to native Kurii, those of the ships would destroy the denizens of the Sardar. Earth, too, then, would inevitably fall. Earth was so proud. It had managed to put a handful of men, for a few hours, on the surface of its moon. The Kurii, for more than twenty thousand years at least, had possessed deep-space capability.
Ivar had motioned me to silence.
We lay still. Within yards of us, strung out, approaching, was a column of pairs of men, each wearing a yellow scarf. Some carried torches. Kurii were not among them. They were led by a large man in swirling cape, and horned helmet, a bearded man. It was Thorgard of Scagnar. He, too, tied at his shoulder, wore a yellow scarf.
They passed.
"Would we not move about more freely," inquired Ivar Forkbeard, "if we, too, sported scarves of yellow?"
"It is not impossible," I said.
"Let us borrow some then," suggested he.
"Very well," I agreed.
Two shadows enveloped the last two men in the column of pairs led by Thorgard of Scagnar.
Ivar had thrust the yellow scarf into his belt; I looped mine over the right shoulder, fastening it loosely at the left hip; we left Thorgard's two men for the Kurii.
In the journey to Ivar's tent a Kur loomed before us, snarling.
"Foolish beast, stupid animal," said Ivar, brandishing his scarf, "can you not see the yellow scarf?"
He then brushed past the Kur. I felt its fur as I moved by it. It was smooth, not unpleasant to the touch, some two inches or so in depth. Its body, beneath the fur, was hot, large.
The Kur, doubtless, could not understand Gorean. If it had it might have slain us both. It could see the scarf, however. Reluctantly, snarling, it let us pass it.
Shortly thereafter Ivar, fists clenched, stood on the site of his camp. The tent had been half burned, and poles were down. It was deserted. There was no sign of life. Boxes lay about. An overturned pan lay in ashes. We saw spilled coins. A piece of rope, cut, lay to one side. The stake, to which the chains of the bond-maids had been fixed, had been torn from the ground.
"Look," I said to him, throwing back a part of the tent. Ivar joined me. We looked down on the carcass of a dead Kur, its jaws opened, its eyes staring at the moons. Its head was half cut from its body.
"Some man of mine did well," said the Forkbeard. Then he look about.
"In the morning," I said, "we will be recognized as not being of Thorgard's forces. In the morning, we will be hunted."
"It is quite possible," said Ivar, looking at me, "that we are being hunted now, by those from the hall."
"Our scent is known," I said. "Yellow scarves will not protect us from those from the hall."
"What do you propose?" asked Ivar.
"We must flee," I told him.
"No," said Ivar. "We must go to the Torvaldsberg."
"I do not understand," I said.
"It is time," he said. He looked about himself, at the ruins of his camp. In the distance we could see burning tents. Too, in the distance, there was a great redness in the sky. Beneath this redness burned the hall of Svein Blue Tooth. Far off, we could hear the howls of Kurii. "It is time," said Ivar Forkbeard, turning away from me, "to go to the Torvaldsberg."
He strode from his camp. I followed him.
It was shortly past noon, on the snowy slopes of the Torvaldsberg.
I looked down into the valley. We could not make out clearly the lineaments of the Kurii pursuing us. They moved rapidly.
They were perhaps a pasang and a half away. They carried shields, axes.
"Let us continue our journey," said Ivar.
"Shall we meet them here?" I asked.
"No," said Ivar, "let us continue our journey "
I looked up at the looming crags of the Torvaldsberg. "It is madness to attempt to climb," I said. "We do not have ropes, equipment. Neither of us are of the mountain people."
I looked back. The Kurii were now a pasang away, on the rocky,
lower slopes, scrambling upward. They had slung their shields and axes on their backs. When they came to a sheet of steep ice they did not go around it but, extending their claws, climbed it rapidly. The Forkbeard and I had lost several Ehn in circling such obstacles. In snow the Kurii, spreading their large, six-digited appendages, dropped to all fours. For their weight, they did not sink deeply. It had taken the Forkbeard and me an Ahn, wading through crusts of snow, to reach our present position. Kurii, it was evident, would accomplish the same distance in a much shorter time.
When snow gave way to patches of rock they would pause, momentarily, nostrils lowered, reading signs that would have been undetectable to a human. Then they would lift their heads, scan the rocks above them, and proceed swiftly.
Ivar Forkbeard stood up. There was no cover now for us between our present position and the beginning of the steeper heights.
Below us we heard Kurii, seeing him, howl with pleasure. One pointed us out to a fourth who had not yet seen us. Then all of them stood below, leaping, lifting their arms.
"They are pleased," I said.
The Kurii then with redoubled speed, began to move toward us.
"Let us continue our journey," suggested the Forkbeard.
My foot slipped, and I hung by the hands, from the rocky ledge. Then I had my footing again.
The sun struck the cliff. My fingers ached. My feet were cold from the ice, the snow. But the upper part of my body sweated.
"Move only one hand or a foot at a time," said Ivar.
It was now the twelfth hour, two Ahn past the Gorean noon. I would not look down.
A rock struck near me, shattering into the granite of the mountain, scarring it. It must have been the size of a tarsk. Startled I almost lost my grip. I tried to remain calm. I heard a Kur climbing below me.
The Torvaldsberg is, all things considered, an extremely dangerous mountain. Yet it is clearly not unscalable, as I learned, without equipment. It has the shape of a spear blade, broad, which has been bent near the tip. It is something over four and a half pasangs in height, or something over seventeen thousand Earth feet. It is not the highest mountain on Gor but it is one of the most dramatic, and most impressive. It is also, in its fearful way, beautiful.
I followed, as closely as I could, the Forkbeard. It did not take me long to understand that he knew well what he was doing. He seemed to have an uncanny sense for locating tiny ledges and cuts in the stone which were almost invisible from even two or three feet below.
Kurii are excellent climbers, well fitted for this activity with their multiple jointed hands and feet, their long fingers, their suddenly extendable claws, but they followed us, nonetheless, with difficulty.
I suspected why this was.
It must have been about the fourteenth Ahn when Ivar reached down and helped me to a ledge.
I was breathing heavily.
"Kurii," he said, "cannot reach this ledge by the same route."
"Why?" I asked.
"The hand holds," said he, "are too shallow, their weight to great."
"Hand holds?" I asked.
"Yes," said he. "Surely you have noticed their convenience."
I looked at him. More than once I had almost slipped down the escarpment.
"And you have noticed how they have become shallower?"
"I noticed the climbing was more difficult," I admitted. "You seem to know the mountain well," I told him.
Ivar smiled.
It had been no accident that he had seemed to have an uncanny knack for locating an ascent path, where none seemed to promise.
"You have been here before," I told him.
"Yes," he said. "As a boy I climbed the Torvaldsberg."
"You spoke of hand holds," I said.
"I cut them," he said.
It then seemed to me no wonder that he had moved with such confidence on the escarpment. I had suspected earlier that he knew the mountain, this facilitating our ascent, and that this explained why the pursuing Kurii, natively better climbers than men, could do little better than keep our pace, if that. I had not suspected, however, that the Forkbeard was taking advantage of a previously wrought path, and one which, in part at least, he had made for himself in years past.
The Forkbeard leaned back, grinning. He rubbed his hands. His fingers were cold. We heard, some sixty feet below us, a Kur scraping with its claws on the mountain below us, feeling for crevices or chinks.
"This ledge," said the Forkbeard, "is a Kur trap. In my youth I was hunted by a Kur in this vicinity. It had trailed me for two days. I took to the mountain. It was sufficiently unwise to follow me. I chose, and cut, a path which it might follow, to the last twenty feet; for the last twenty feet I cut shallow holds in the surface, adequate for a man, climbing carefully, but too shallow for the fingers of a Kur."
Below us I heard a snarl of frustration.
"As a boy, thus," said Ivar, "I slew my first Kur." He rose to his feet. He went to a corner of the ledge where, heaped, there were several large stones. "The stones I then gathered are still here," he said. "I found several on the ledge, some I found higher."
I did not envy the Kur below.
I looked over the edge. "It is still climbing," I whispered. I drew my sword. It would not be difficult to prevent the animal from reaching the ledge by any direct route.
"It is stupid," said the Forkbeard.
Behind the first Kur, some feet below, was a second. Two others were far down the slope, where it was less sheer. The two closest to us had left their weapons below, with the others.
The first Kur was some eight or ten feet below us when, suddenly, it slipped on the rock and, with a wild shriek, scratching at the stone, slid some four feet downward and then plunged backward, turning in the air, howling, and, some five Ihn later, struck the rocks far below.
"The hand holds," said Ivar, "were not cut to be deep enough to support the weight of a Kur."
The second Kur was some twenty-five feet below. It looked up, snarling.
The rock hurled by Ivar struck it from the almost vertical wall of stone.
It, like its confrere, fell to the rocks below.
The trap, laid for an enemy by a boy of Torvaldsland many years ago, was still effective. I admired Ivar Forkbeard. Even in his youth he had been resourceful, cunning. Even as a boy he had been a dangerous foe, in guile and wit the match even for an adult Kur.
The other two Kurii crouched below on the slopes, looking up. They carried their shields, their axes, on their back.
They made no attempt to approach us.
Our position was not, now, a desirable one. We were isolated on a ledge. Here there was not food nor water. We could, with some climbing, obtain ice or snow, but there was no food. In time we would weaken, be unable to climb well. As hunters Kurii were patient beasts. If these had fed well before taking up our pursuit, they would not need food for days. I had little doubt they had fed well. There had been much available meat. There was little possibility of leaving the ledge undetected. Kurii have superb night vision. Furthermore, it would be extremely dangerous to attempt to move on the Torvaldsberg in the night; it was extremely dangerous even in full daylight.
I rubbed my hands together, and blew on them. My feet too, were cold. The sweat in my shirt, now that I was not climbing, was frozen. The shirt was stiff, cold. In the night on the Torvaldsberg, even in the middle of the summer, without warm garments, a man might freeze. The wind then began to rise, sweeping the ledge. From where we stood we could see the black ruins of Svein Blue Tooth's hall and holdings, the desolated thing fields, the sea, Thassa, with the ships at the beach.
I looked at the Forkbeard.
"Let us continue our journey," he said.
"Let us descend and meet the Kurii, while we still have strength," I said.
"Let us continue our journey," he said.
Moving carefully, he began to climb. I followed him. After perhaps half an Ahn, I looked back. The two Kurii, by a parallel route, were following.
That night on the Torvaldsberg we did not freeze.
We huddled on a ledge, between rocks, sheltered from the wind, shivering with cold, miserable, listening for Kurii.
But they did not approach.
We had chosen our ledge well.
Twice rocks rained down to the ledge, but we were protected by an overhang.
"Would you like to hear me sing?" asked Ivar.
"Yes," I said, "it might drive the Kurii away."
Undeterred by my sarcasm, brilliant though it was, Ivar broke into song. He knew, it seemed, a great many songs.
No more rocks rained down to the ledge.
"Song, you see," said Ivar, "soothes even Kurii."
"More likely," I said, "they have withdrawn from earshot."
"You jest delightfully," acknowledged the Forkbeard, "I had not thought it in you."
"Yes," I admitted.
"I will teach you a song," he said, "and we shall sing it together."
The song dealt with the problems of a man attempting to content one hundred bond-maids, one after the other, it is rather repetitious, and the number of bond-maids decreases by one in each round. Needless to say, it is a song which is not swiftly dispatched. I have, incidentally, a very fine singing voice.
In singing, we little noticed the cold. Yet, toward dawn, we took turns napping. "We will need our strength," said the Forkbeard.
How marvelous in the morning seemed the sun.
"If the Kurii are above us," I said, recalling the rain of stones, "is this not out opportunity to descend?"
"Kurii corner their prey," said the Forkbeard. "In the light, they will be below us. They will wish to keep between us and escape. Further, we would have little opportunity to escape, even if they were above us. The descent is difficult." I recalled the two Kurii, precariously clinging to the wall of rock, one of which had fallen attempting to reach us, the other of which Ivar had struck from the wall with a heavy stone. I shuddered.
"There they are," said Ivar, looking over the brink. He waved to them. Then he turned, cheerily, to me. "Let us continue our journey," he said.