John Norman - Marauders of Gor

I am tall, and found it not difficult to look over the heads of many in the crowd.

So this is the end, I thought to myself, of the great Ivar Forkbeard.

He comes in death to the temple of Priest-Kings, that his bones may be anointed with the grease of Priest-Kings.

It was his last will, now loyally, doggedly, carried out by his saddened men.

Somehow I regretted that Ivar Forkbeard was dead.

The initiates, chanting, now filed into the temple with their candles. The chant was taken up by the initiates, too, within the sanctuary. Behind the platform of crossed spears, heads down, filed the crew of Forkbeard. They wore long cloaks; they carried no weapons; no shields; they wore no helmets.

Weapons, I knew were not to be carried within the temple of Priest-Kings.

They seemed beaten, saddened dogs. They were not as I had expected the men of Torvaldsland to be.

"Are those truly men of Torvaldsland?" asked the blonde girl, of the older woman, obviously disappointed.

"Hush," said the older woman. "Show reverence for this place, for the Priest-Kings."

"I thought they would be other than that," sniffed the girl.

"Hush," said the older woman.

"Very well," said the girl, irritably. "What weaklings they seem."

To the amazement of the crowd, at a sign from the High Initiate of Kassau, two lesser initiates opened the gate to the white rail.

Another initiate, sleek, fat, his shaved head oiled, shining in the light of the candles, carrying a small golden vessel of thickened chrism went to each of the four men of Torvaldsland, making on their foreheads the sign of the Priest-Kings, the circle of eternity.

The crowd gasped. It was incredible honour that was being shown to these men, that they might, themselves, on the platform of crossed spears, carry the body of Ivar Forkbeard, in death penitent, to the high steps of the great altar. It was the chrism of temporary permission, which, in the teachings of initiates, allows one not consecrated to the service of Priest-Kings to enter the sanctuary. In a sense it is counted an anointing, though an inferior one, and of temporary efficacy. It was first used at roadside shrines, to permit civil authorities to enter and slay fugitives who had taken sanctuary at the altars. It is also used for workmen and artists, who may be employed to practice their craft within the rail, to the enhancement of the temple and the Priest-king's glory.

Ivar Forkbeard's body was not anointed as it was carried through the gate in the rail.

The dead need no anointing. Only the living, it is held, can profane the sacred.

The four men of Torvaldsland carried the huge body of Ivar Forkbeard up the steps to the altar, on the crossed spears. Then, still beneath the white shroud, they laid it gently on the highest step of the altar.

Then the four men fell back, two to each side, heads down. The High Initiate then began to intone a complex prayer in archaic Gorean to which, at intervals, responses were made by the assembled initiates, those within the railing initially and now, too, the twelve, still carrying candles, who had accompanied the body from the ship through the dirt streets of Kassau, among the wooden buildings, to the temple. When the initiate finished his prayer, the other initiates began to sing a solemn hymn, while the chief initiate, at the altar, his back turned to the congregation, began to prepare, with words and signs, the grease of Priest-Kings, for the anointing of the bones of Ivar Forkbeard.

Toward the front of the temple, behind the rail, and even at the two doors of the temple, by the great beams which close them, stood the mean of Forkbeard. Many of them were giants, huge men, inured to the cold, accustomed to war and the labor of the oar, raised from boyhood on steep, isolated farms near the sea, grown strong and hard on work, and meat and cereals. Such men, from boyhood, in harsh games had learned to run, to leap, to throw the spear, to wield the sword, to wield the axe, to stand against steel, even bloodied, unflinching. Such men, these, would be the hardest of the hard, for only the largest, the swiftest and finest might win for themselves a bench on the ship of a captain, and the man great enough to command such as they must be first and mightiest among them, for the men of Torvaldsland will obey no other, and that man had been Ivar Forksbeard.

But Ivar Forksbeard had come in death, if not in life, to the temple of Priest-Kings, betraying the old gods, to have his bones anointed with the grease of Priest-Kings. No more would he make over his ale, with his closed fist, the sign of the hammer.

I noted one of the men of Torvaldsland. He was of incredible stature, perhaps eight feet in height and broad as a bosk. His hair was shaggy. His skin seemed grayish. His eyes were vacant and staring, his lips parted. He seemed to me in a stupor, as though he heard or saw nothing.

The High Initiate now turned to face the congregation. In his hands he held the tiny, golden, rounded box in which lay the grease of Priest-Kings. At his feet lay the body of the Forkbeard.

The congregation tensed and, scarcely breathing, lifting their heads, intent, observed the High Initiate of Kassau. I saw the blond girl standing on her toes, in the black shoes, looking over the shoulders of the woman in front of her. On the platform the men of importance, and their families, observed the High Initiate, among them, craning her neck, looking over her father's shoulder, was the large blond girl, in her black velvet and silver.

"Praises be unto the Priest-Kings!" called out the High Initiate.

"Praises unto the Priest-Kings," responded the initiates.

It was in that moment, and in that moment only, that I detected on the thin, cold face of the High Initiate of Kassau, a tiny smile of triumph.

He bent down, on one knee, the tiny, rounded, golden box containing the grease of Priest-Kings in his left hand and drew back with his right hand the long, white shroud concealing the body of Ivar Forksbeard.

Doubtless it was the High Initiate of Kassau who first knew. He seemed frozen. The eyes of the Forkbeard opened, and Ivar Forksbeard grinned at him.

With a roar of laughter, hurling the shroud from him, to the horror of the High Initiate, and other initiates, and the congregation, Ivar Forksbeard, almost seven feet in height, leaped to his feet, in his right hand clutching a great, curved, single-bladed ax of hardened iron.

"Praise be to Odin!" he cried.

Then he with his ax, with a single swing, splattering blood on the sheets of gold, cut the head from the body of the High Initiate of Kassau, and leaped, booted, to the height of the very altar of the temple itself.

He threw back his head and laughed with a wild roaring, the bloody ax in his hand.

I heard the beams of the two doors of the temples being thrown in place, locking the people within. I saw the cloaks of the men of Torvaldsland hurled from them and saw, gripped in their two hands, great axes. I suddenly saw the large man of Torvaldsland, he of incredible stature, seem to come alive, veins prominent on his forehead, mouth slobbering, striking about himself almost blindly with a great ax.

Ivar Forksbeard stood on the high altar. "The men of Torvaldsland," he cried, are upon you!"

Screaming pierced my ears.

I was almost thrown from my feet by the buffeting, shrieking bodies.

I strained my eyes to see through the clouds of incense hanging in the temple.

I smelled blood.

A girl cried out.

People, merchants, the rich, the poor, fishermen, porters, fled towards the great doors, there to be cut down with axes. They fled back to the center of the temple, huddled together. Axes cut through their midst. I heard shouts. I heard the harsh war cries of Torvaldsland. I heard golden sheets of metal being pried from the square pillars of the temple. The interior of the sanctuary was strewn with dead initiates, many hacked to pieces. The four boys who had sung in the services held to one another, crying, like girls. From the high altar, standing upon it, Ivar Forkbeard directed his men. "Hurry!" he cried. "Gather what you can!"