John Norman - Marauders of Gor

Seventeen of the girls, weeping, fled to the circle, and huddled within it.

Two did not, the slender blond girl and the larger one, in black velvet.

"I am Aelgifu," said the large girl. "I am the daughter of Gurt of Kassau. He is administrator. There will be ransom money for me."

"It is true!" cried a man, the burgher in black satin, whose chain of office Forkbeard had torn from his neck.

"One hundred pieces of gold," said Forkbeard to him observing the girl.

She stiffened.

"Yes," cried the man. "Yes!"

"Five nights from this night," said Ivar Forkbeard, "on the skerry of Einar by the rune-stone of the Torvaldsmark."

I had heard of this stone. It is taken by many to mark the border between Torvaldsland and the south. Many of those of Torvaldsland, however, take its borders to be much farther extended than the

Torvalds regard Torvaldsmark. Indeed, some of their ships beach, as if they took their country, and their steel, with them.

"Yes!" said the man. "I will bring the money to that place."

"Go to the bond-maid circle," said Ivar Forkbeard to the large girl, "but do not enter it."

"Yes," she said, hurrying to its edge.

"The wall of the temple will not last much longer," said one of the men of the Forkbeard.

Forkbeard looked then at the younger, blond, more slender girl, she with her hair now loose, the snood of scarlet. She looked up at him, boldly. "My father is poorer than Aelgifu's," she said, "but for me, too, there will be a ransom."

"Go to the circle and enter it," said Ivar Forkbeard to the girl.

She looked at him with horror. In the crowd I heard a man and a woman cry out with misery.

She held up her head. "No," she said. "I am free. Never will I consent to be a bond-maid. I shall first choose death!"

"Very well," laughed the Forkbeard. "Kneel."

Startled, she did so, uncertainly.

"Put your head down," he said, "throw your hair forward, exposing your neck."

She did so.

He lifted the great ax.

Suddenly she cried out and thrust her head to his boot.

She held his ankle.

"Have mercy on a bond-maid!" she wept.

Ivar Forkbeard laughed and reached down and pulled her up by the arm, his great fist closed about her arm within the white woolen blouse, and thrust her stumbling well within the circle.

"The wall will soon fall," said one of them.

I could see the fire creeping now, too, to the roof.

"Bond-maids," ordered Ivar Forkbeard harshly, "strip"!

Crying out the girls removed their garments. I saw that the weeping, slender blond-hair girl was incredibly beautiful.

Her legs and belly, and breasts, were marvelous. And her face, too, was beautiful, sensitive and intelligent. I envied the Forkbeard his catch.

"Fetter them," said Ivar Forkbeard.

"I hear the townfolk gathering," said one of the men at the door.

Two of the men of Torvaldsland had, from their left shoulder to their right hip, that their right arms be less I impeded, a chain formed of slave bracelets; each pair of bracelets locked at each end about one of the bracelets of another pair, the whole thus forming a circle. Now they removed this chain of bracelets, and, one by one, removed the pairs, closing them about the small wrists, behind their backs, of the female captives, now bond-maids. These bracelets were of the sort used to hold women in the north. They are less ornate and finely tooled than those available in the south. But they are satisfactory for their purpose. They consist of curved, hinged bands of black iron, three quarters of an inch in width and a quarter inch in thickness. On one of each of the two curved pieces constituting a bracelet there is a welded ring; the two welded rings are joined by a single link, about an inch in width counting both sides, each of which is about a quarter of an inch in diameter, and three inches long. Some of the girls cried out with pain as the fetters, locking, bit into their wrists.

I saw the slender girl's wrists pulled behind her and snapped in the fetters. She winced. They were rough, plain fetters, but they would hold her well, quite as well as the intricately wrought counterparts of the south.

Ivar Forkbeard regarded Aelgifu. "Fetter her, too," he said. She was fettered.

The fire had now climbed well unto the roof and had taken hold on another wall, near the railing, against which the women, earlier, had stood.

It was growing hard to breathe in the temple.

"Coffle the females," said Forkbeard.

With a long length of binding fiber the nineteen girls were swiftly fastened throat to throat.

Aelgifu, clothed, led the coffle. She was free. The others were only bond-maids.

The beams which secured the doors were thrown back, but the doors were not opened.

The men of Torvaldsland struggled to lift their burdens. Gold is not light.

"Utilize the bond-maids," said the Forkbeard, angrily. Swiftly, about the necks of the bond-maids were tied strings #and plate. Soon, they, too, were heavily burdened. Several staggered under the weight of the riches they bore.

"In the north, my pretty maids," Ivar assured them, "the burdens you carry will be more prosaic, bundles of wood for the fires, buckets of water for the hall, baskets of dung for the fields."

They looked at him with horror understanding then what the nature of their life would be.

And at night, of course, they would serve the feasts of their masters, carrying and filling the great horns, and delighting them with the softness of their bodies in the furs.

"We are ready to depart," said one of the men. I could hear angry townspeople outside.

"You will never get us to the ship," said the slender blond girl.

"Be silent, bond-maid," said Ivar Forkbeard.

"My bondage will not last long," she laughed.

"We shall see," laughed Ivar Forkbeard.

He then ran, almost through the flames to the high altar of the temple of Kassau. With a single leap he attained its summit. Then, with his boot and shoulder, he tottered the great circle of gold which surmounted it. It moved unsteadily, rocking back and broke apart. It was only golden sheathing on a wheel of clay.

The people of Kassau, within the burning temple, cried, startled. They had understood the circle to be of solid gold.

Standing on the broken fragments of the circle, Ivar Forkbeard cried out, his ax lifted, and his left hand, too, "Praise be to Odin!" And then, throwing his ax to his left shoulder, holding it there by his left hand the turned and faced the Sardar, and lifted his fist, clenched. It was not only a sign of defiance to Priest-Kings, but the fist, the sign of the hammer. It was the sign of Thor.

"We can carry no more," cried one of his men.

"Nor shall we," laughed Ivar.

"The circle?" cried one.

"Leave it for the people to see," laughed Ivar. "That it is only gold on a wheel of clay!"

He turned to face me.

"I want passage to Torvaldsland," I said. "I hunt beast."

"Kurii?" he asked.

"Yes," I said.

"You are mad," he said.

"Less mad I expect than Ivar Forkbeard," I said.

"My serpent," said he, "is not a vessel on which one may book passage."

"I play Kaissa," I said.

"The voyage north will be long," he said.

"I am skilled at the game," I said. "Unless you are quite good, I shall beat you."

We heard the people screaming outside. I heard one of the beams in the ceiling crack. The roar of the flames seemed deafening. "We shall die in the temple if we do not soon flee," said one of his men. Of all those in the temple, I think only I, and Ivar Forkbeard, and the giant, he of incredible stature, who had fought with such frenzy, did not seem anxious. He did not seem even aware of the flames. He carried a sack of plate at his back, heavy and bulging, which had been given to him by other men, that he might carry it.