John Norman - Marauders of Gor

"You are a fool!" he cried.

"I have not yet learned to break the Jarl's Ax's gambit," I rejoined.

I sheathed my sword. I leaned back, casually against the wall. My arms were folded.

"Fool!" he cried.

He looked about, at the men who could not fight, who could not move, who could not stir. He slammed his sword into its sheath and leaped up, seizing one of the lamps on its chain.

The two Kurii who had turned toward me now lifted their axes.

I turned over the table, behind which I stood. The two axes hit the heavy beams simultaneously, exploding wood in great chunks between the walls, shattering it as high as the ceiling itself.

I vaulted the table.

I heard the startled snarls of the Kurii.

Then I had my hands on one of the large, swinging, bronze lamps. Oil spilled, flamed from the wick. I swung, wildly. My right sleeve caught afire.

I heard a Kur below me scream with pain; I looked down, and hauled myself up to avoid the stroke of an ax; one Kur reeled about; the left side of its furred head, wet, drenched in oil, was aflame; it screamed hideously; it clawed at its left eye.

Hand over hand I crawled up the chain; then the chain shook, wildly; I struggled to hold it; the fire at my right sleeve snapped back and forth; I lost my breath; I feared my neck would break; blood was on the chain; I held it; Kurii howled beneath me; I moved further up the chain; then the chain stretched down, taut; an ax flew wheeling past, half cutting into one of the crossbeams in the roof; I climbed higher; then, suddenly, I realized why the chain had been pulled taut; the beam, above me, creaked; the chain was now tight, like a cable; the links strained, grating on one another; it now bore, besides mine, the weight of a Kur, rapidly climbing; the ring above me, through which the chain passed, pulled part way from the wood; I scrambled up the last few feet of the chain; I threw my arm over the beam; I felt claws seize at my leg, then close about it; I released the beam, screaming the war cry of Ko-ro-ba, falling tearing and ripping with fingers and teeth about the neck and head of the startled Kur; stiffened fingers, like daggers, drove at its eyes; my teeth tore at the veins in its wrist, in the arm that held the chain; in that instant the Kur realized, and, I realized, too, for the first time, that there were on the surface of Gor animals as savage as its kind, slighter animals, smaller, weaker, but no less vicious, in their way no less terrible; fending me away, screaming, biting, it released me, but I clung about its shoulders and neck; I bit through half of its ear; I pulled myself up to the beam; an orifice, red, projecting fangs like white nails, stretched below me; I drew the sword and, as it climbed, eyes bleeding, ear torn, after me, I cut away its hand; it fell back, growing smaller, until it struck heavily on the reeded earth, stained with its churned, reddish mud, forty feet below; it broke its neck; I tore away the flaming sleeve of my garment and thrust it, on the sword point, into the face of the next Kur; the hand of the first still clung to the chain, with its six multiple jointed fingers; the Kur, with a shake of its head, dislodged the burning cloth and pulled its pierced face from the sword; it bit at the sword, cutting its mouth; it reached to the beam; I cut at the fingers; it lost its balance; it, too, fell backward.

"Come!" I heard. I saw the Forkbeard on a nearby beam. "Hurry!" he cried.

I choked in the smoke. I thrust at the next Kur, driving the blade through its ear into the brain. Part of the roof fell away, tumbling burning to the ground below.

"Hurry!" I heard, as though from far away. I cut down at the next Kur. It snarled, grasping for me. The ring, through which the chain passed, unable to bear longer the weight of Kurii, splintered free of the wood. I saw the ring and chain dart downward. Four Kurii climbing, two leaping free, two clinging to the chain, fell to the earth below.

Another portion of the roof fell, not more than twenty feet from me. Below, covered with sparks scarcely visible in the smoke, I saw Kurii looking up, cheated of their prey. A beam fell, not more than a dozen feet from them. Their leader uttered some sound to them. His eyes, blazing, looked up at me. About his left arm was the spiral golden band. Then he, with the others, turned about and, swiftly shambling, some looking back, fled the hall. I sheathed my sword.

"Hurry!" cried the Forkbeard. I leaped from beam to beam to join him. After him, I squeezed through one of the smoke holes in the roof of the burning hall. Then we were standing on the wooden-shingled blazing roof of the hall of Svein Blue Tooth. I looked up and saw the stars and moons of Gor.

"Follow me," cried Ivar. In the distance I saw the Torvaldsberg. There was moonlight reflecting from its snows. He sped to the northwest corner of the hall. He disappeared over the edge of the roof I looked over and saw him, in the moonlight, making his way downward, hand by hand, foot by foot, using the clefts, projections and niches in the ornate carvings of the exterior corner beams of the Blue Tooth's hall. Swiftly, my arm scorched from the fire which had torn at my sleeve, hear pounding, breathing heavily, I followed him.

It was noon, on the snowy slopes of the Torvaldsberg.

Ivar and I looked behind us. We could see them following, four of them, like black dots.

"Let us rest," said Ivar.

I shut my eyes against the glare of the sun on the snow. He sat down, with his back against a rock. I, too, sat down, crosslegged, as a warrior sits.

We had climbed down from the roof of the Blue Tooth's burning hall, using the projections and relief of the ornately carved corner beams. Climbing down, I had seen Kurii moving about, but near the front of the hall. In the light of the burning hall, here and there, scattered in the dirt of the courtyard, we saw sprawled, scattered bodies, and parts of bodies. Some Kurii, squatting among them, fed. In one corner of the stockade, huddled together, their white bodies, now stripped, red in the light of the flames, were the bond-maids, in their leather collars, leashed, the straps in the furred fists of their master. Several Kurii, not feeding, carrying shields, axes, moved to and fro. We dropped to the courtyard, unseen. We slipped behind the hall, keeping, where possible, buildings between us and the yard. We reached the palisade, climbed to its catwalk and, unnoticed, leaped over.

I opened my eyes, and looked down into the valley. The four dots were larger now.

The Forkbeard, after our escape from the stockade of Svein Blue Tooth, had been intent upon reaching his camp. It had been dangerous, furtive work. To our astonishment the countryside was swarming with Kurii. I could not conjecture their numbers. There might have been hundreds; there might have been thousands. They seemed everywhere. Twice we were pursued, but, in the midst of the scents, and distracted by fresh blood, our pursuers turned aside. We saw, at one point, two Kurii fighting over a body. Sometimes we threw ourselves to the ground, among the fallen. Once a Kur passed within a yard of my hand. It howled with pleasure at the moons, and then was gone. As many as four or five times we crept within yards of feeding Kurii, oblivious to our presence. The attack had been simultaneously launched, obviously, on the hall and the surrounding thing-camps. Even more to our astonishment than the Kurii, and their numbers, about, was the presence of men, wearing yellow scarves, among them, men whom they did not attack. My fists clenched in rage. Kurii, as is often the case, had enlisted human allies.

"Look," had said the Forkbeard, pointing from a height, on which we lay prone, to the beach. Offshore, some few yards, among the other ships, lay new ships, many of them, strange ships. They lay black, rocking, on the sparkling water. One ship was prominent among them. It was large. It had eighty oars. "_Black Sleen_," said Ivar, "the ship of Thorgard of Scagnar!"