by John Norman
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 and there, mounted on stakes, were the heads of Kurii.
We stepped over broken axes, shattered poles, torn leather, from the lodges of the Kurii. We passed a dozen men emptying kegs of ale. It had become cloudy. We heard a ship's song from 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 been tied together at its belly and its legs tied in leather ankle shackles. They were beating it back and forth between them with 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. The dirt, in many places, was soft, from the blood. We picked our way among bodies, mostly those of Kurii, for the surprise, the fury, had been ours. We passed five men, about a fire, roasting a haunch of Kur. The smell was heavy, and sweet, 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 with us, 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 and held his fist, making the sign of Thor. Then he drank, and 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.
Behind 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. They were stripped of their helmets, belts and weapons. They stood, chained by the neck, their wrists shackled before them.
"I see only loot," said the Forkbeard.
"Kneel!" ordered Ottar.
"Sell them as slaves in Lydius," said the Forkbeard. He turned 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 binding fiber 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, facing 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 Forkbeard, 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 ring of the Kur collar which she wore, Ivar Forkbeard jerked her to her feet, so that she stood on her tiptoes, looking up at him. He grinned. "To the pen with you, Slave," he said. She 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 little wench, 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 immediately 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. In her 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 to the 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 beautiful, 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 Forkbeard 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," sa
id 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, Kurii might, 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 of their power, information that might then be exploited at a later date by the strategists of the steel worlds.