John Norman - Marauders of Gor

"I, too, am skilled at the game," said Ivar Forkbeard.

"Are you truly good?"

"I am good," I said. "Whether I am as good as you, of course, I shall not know until we play."

"True," said Forkbeard.

"I shall join you at your ship," I said.

"Do so," said he.

Then he turned to one of his men. "Keep close to me the coins brought as offerings by the poor to the temple of Kassau," he said. These coins had now been placed in the large, single bowl.

"Yes, Captain," said the man.

The rear wall, too, of the temple now caught fire, I heard another beam in the ceiling crack. There were sparks in the air. They stung my face. The bond-maids, their bodies exposed to them, cried out in pain.

"Open the other gate!" cried Ivar Forkbeard. Hysterically, crowding, those citizens of Kassau who had, weeping, terrified, been lying on their stomachs in the dirt, beneath the burning roof, leapt to their feet and fled through the door.

Ivar permitted them to leave the temple.

"They are coming out!" cried a voice from the outside. We heard angry men running to the door, people turning the movements of chains, flails and rakes.

"Now let us leave," said Ivar Forkbeard.

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

"You will hurry, pretty little bond-maids, and you, too, my large-breasted lovely," said Ivar, indicating black-velveted Aelgifu, "or you will be cut out of the coffle by your heads."

"Open the door," he said.

The door was swung open. "To the ships," he cried.

"Hurry, my pretties," he laughed, striking the slender blond girl, and others of them, sharply with the palm of his hand. His men, too, the girls between them, pushed through the door.

"They are coming out here!" cried a voice, a man in the crowd of the poor, a peasant, turning about, seeing us. But many of those in the crowd were clasping loved ones, and friends, as they escaped from the other door. Swiftly, down the dirt street to the wharves from the temple, striding, but not running, moved Ivar Forkbeard with his men, and his loot, both that of female flesh and gold. Many of the peasants, and fishermen, and other poor people, who had not found places in the temple, turned about. Several of them began to follow us, lifting flails and great scythes. Some carried chains, others hoes.

They had no leadership.

Like wolves, crying out, shouting, lifting their fists, they ran behind us as we made our way toward the wharves. Then a rock fell among us, and another.

None of them cared to rush upon the axes of the men of Torvaldsland.

"Save us!" cried the slender blond girl. "You are men! Save us!"

At her cries many of the men seemed emboldened and rushed more closely about us, but swings of the great axes kept them back.

"Gather together!" we heard. "Charge!" We saw Gurt, in his black satin, rallying them.

They had lacked a leader. They had one now. Ivar Forkbeard then took Aelgifu by the hair and turned her, so that those following might see.

"Stop!" cried Gurt to them.

The single-bladed edge of the great ax lay at Aelgifu's throat; her head was bent back. For Forkbeard, his left hand in her hair, his right hand just below the head of the ax, grinned at Gurt.

"Stop," said Gurt, moaning, crushed, "do not fight them! Let them go!"

Ivar Forkbeard released Aelgifu and thrust her rudely, stumbling, ahead of him.

"Hurry!" called Ivar Forkbeard to his men. "Hurry bright-fleshed ones," called he to the fettered, burdened coffled bond-maids.

Behind us, we heard the roof of the temple collapse. I looked back. Smoke stained the sky.

A hundred yards from the wharves we saw a crowd of angry men, perhaps two hundred, blocking the way. They held gaffs, harpoons, even pointed sticks. Some carried crash hooks and others chisels, and iron levers.

"You see," cried the blond, girl, delightedly, "my bondage is short!"

"Citizens of Kassau!" called out Ivar Forkbeard cheerily. "Greetings from Ivar Forkbeard!"

The men looked at him, tense, hunched over, weapons ready, angry.

Forkbeard then, grinning, slung his ax over his left shoulder, dropping it into the broad leather loop by which it may be carried, its head behind his head and to the left. This loop is fixed in a broad leather belt worn from the left shoulder to the right hip, fastened there by a hook, that the weight of the ax will not turn the belt, which fits into a ring in the

All men of Torvaldsland, incidentally, even if otherwise unarmed, carry a knife at their master belt. The sword, when carried, and it often is, is commonly supported

might be mentioned, the common Gorean practice. It can also, of course, be hung, by its sheath and sheath straps, from the master belt, which is quite adequate, being a stout heavy belt, to hold it. It is called the master belt, doubtless, to distinguish it from the ax belt and the sword belt, and because it is, almost always worn. A pouch, of course, and other accoutrements may hang, too, from it. Gorean garments, generally, do not contain pockets. Some say the master belt gets its name because it is used sometimes in the disciplining of bond-maids. This seems to be a doubtful origin for the name. It is true, however, questions of the origin of the name aside, that bond-maids, stripped, are often taught obedience under its lash.

Ivar Forkbeard reached out his hands and took from one of his men the bowl of coins which the poor had brought as their pitiful offerings to the temple of Kassau.

Then, smiling, by handfuls he hurled the coins to the right and to the left.

Tense, the men watched him. One of those coins, of small denomination though they might be, was a day's wages on the docks of Kassau.

More coins, in handfuls, showered to the street, to the sides of the men.

"Fight!" screamed the blond girl. "Fight!"

One of the men, suddenly, reached down and snatched one.

Then, with a great, sweeping gesture, Ivar Forkbeard emptied the bowl of coins, scattering them in a shower of copper and iron over the men. Two more men reached down to snatch a coin.

"Fight!" screamed the blond girl. "Fight!"

The first man, scrabbling in the dirt, picked up another coin, and the another.

Then the second and third man found, each, another coin. Then the others, agonized, unable longer to resist, scurried to the left and right, their weapons discarded, and fell to their knees snatching coins.

"Cowards!" Sleen!" wept the blond girl. Then she cried out in misery, half choked by the coffle loop on her throat, as she found herself hurried, fettered and burdened with the others, through the workers of Kassau.

We brushed through the scrabbling workers and saw before us the wharf, and the serpent, sleek and swift, of Ivar Forkbeard, at its moorings. Ten men had remained at the ship. Eight held bows, with arrows at the string; none had dared to approach the ship; the short bow of the Gorean north, with its short, heavy arrows, heavily headed, lacks the range and power of the peasant bow of the south, that now, too, the property of the rencers of the delta, but at short range, within a hundred and fifty yards, it can administer a considerable strike. It has, too, the advantage that it is more manageable in close quarters than the peasant bow, resembling somewhat the Tuchuk bow of layered horn in this respect. It is more useful in close combat on a ship, for example, than would be the peasant bow. Too, it is easier to fire it through a thole port, the oar withdrawn. The two other men stood ready with knives to cut the mooring ropes.

The men of Ivar Forkbeard threw their bulging cloaks, filled with gold and plate, into the ship.

Ivar Forkbeard looked back.

We heard, in the distance, a muffled crash. A wall of the temple had fallen. Then, a moment later, we heard the falling of another wall. Smoke, in angry billows, black and fiery, climbed the sky above Kassau.