John Norman - Marauders of Gor

I saw the huge, little-known man of Torvaldsland, who had joined the host late, calling himself Hrolf, from the East, who had come from the direction of the Torvaldsberg. With a cry he thrust his spear through the chest of a Kur.

He fought magnificently.

A Kur charged. I side-stepped, catching it in the belly with the ax.

I saw another Kur, undecided, startled. I slipped in #gut. It charged. I reared the handle of the ax, catching it in the stomach, turning it to one side. It grunted. I leapt up, catching it in the side of the neck before it could rise. Its head half to one side it rose to its feet and ran for a dozen yards before it slipped, falling sideways, rolling into the fur and burning leather of one of their lodges.

"Protect me!" I heard. A female threw herself to my feet, putting her head to my ankle. "Protect me!" she wept. I looked down. She lifted her face, terrified, tear-stained. She had dark hair, dark eyes. I saw the iron collar, dark, on her white throat. It was Leah, the Canadian girl. With my foot I thrust her, weeping, to one side. There was men's work to do.

I met the attack of the Kur squarely. The handle of its ax smote down across the handle of mine, forcing me to one knee. Slowly I reared up, forcing the handle, now held in the two paws of the Kur, upward and backward. It again thrust down, with its full weight and strength, certain that it could crush the puny strength of a human. I held it only long enough to satisfy myself that I could, then I withdrew the handle swiftly, twisting to one side and lifting the ax. It fell forward, startled.

I stepped on the handle of the ax. It tried to dislodge it. My ax was raised. It rolled wildly to one side. My blow fell against its left shoulder blade, dividing it. Howling, it leapt to its feet, backing away from me, baring its fangs. I followed it. It turned suddenly and leapt away. I caught it before the opening of a pavilion tent, one of those of Thorgard of Scagnar, perhaps his own. The tent was striped. The Kur, turning, now facing me, moved backward; it stumbled against a tent rope, jerking loose its peg. I leaped forward, striking it again, at the left hip. The side of its furred leg was drenched with blood. Hunched over, snarling, it backed into the tent, where I followed it.

There was screaming from within the tent, the screaming of Thorgard's silken girls, many of them short, plump, lusciously bodied. Some were chained by the left ankle. The silks they wore, clinging and diaphanous, were designed not to conceal their beauty but to reveal it, to enhance and accentuate it, to expose it sensuously to the survey of a master. They, collared, shrank back, cowering on the cushions, drawing back to the side of the tent. I scarcely glanced at them. They would belong to the victors.

The Kur, backing away, with its right arm, reaching across its body, tore up one of the tent poles, wrenching it free of the earth, the tent. The tent sagged near him. He snarled. He thrust out with the tent pole, using the spike at its top like a spear. Then he swung the pole, striking at me. I waited. It was weak from the loss of blood. It turned about again and fled to the opposite wall of the tent. It tried to tear the silk, and it was at the wall of the tent that I caught it. I lifted my ax from the body, and turned to face the women. I strode to them. They knelt, huddled together, holding one another, at the side of the tent. They put down their eyes, trembling. I left the tent.

"Where is Thorgard of Scagnar?" asked Ivar Forkbeard. His shirt was half torn away. There was Kur blood on his chest and against the side of his face.

"I do not know," I told him.

Behind Ivar Forkbeard, naked, wearing his collar, I saw Hilda, Thorgard's daughter.

"There is a rallying of Kurii by the verr pens!" cried a man.

Quickly Ivar and myself hurried to the verr pens.

The rally was ill fated. Spears fell among the determined Kurii. Several fell in the mud and filth of the verr pens themselves, the bleating animals, frightened, darting about, leaping over the bodies.

Near the verr pens we found chained male slaves, picked up by Kurii on foraging expeditions, and used as porters. There were more than three hundred such wretches.

Svein Blue Tooth was at the pens, leading the attack that had broken the rally. The rally had been led by the Kur who had been foremost in the attack on his hall. This Kur, it seemed, had disappeared, scattering with the others. The Blue Tooth stepped over the body of a fallen Kur. He gestured to the chained male slaves. "Free them," he said, "and give them weapons. There is yet work to do." Eagerly the slaves, when their manacles had been struck away, picked up weapons and sought Kurii.

"Do not permit Kurii to escape to the south," said Svein Blue Tooth to Ketil, keeper of his high farm, who had been famed as a wrestler.

"The bosk herd blocks their escape in numbers," said Ketil. "Some have even been trampled."

"We have been tricked!" cried a man. "Across the camp is the true rally, hundreds of Kurii! All falls before them! This was a ruse to draw men here, permitting Kurii to regroup in numbers elsewhere!"

My heart leaped.

No wonder the commander of the Kurii had left his forces here, disappearing. I wondered if they knew his real intent had been elsewhere. I admired him. He was a true general, a most dangerous and lethal foe, unscrupulous, brilliant.

"It seems," grinned Ivar Forkbeard, "we have a worthy adversary."

"The battle turns against us!" cried a man.

"They must be held!" said Ivar Forkbeard. We heard the howling of Kurii, from almost a pasang away, on the other side of the camp. Drifting to us, too, were the cries of men. "Let us join the fray, Tarl Red Hair," invited the Forkbeard.

Fleeing men rushed past us. The Forkbeard struck one, felling him.

"To the battle," said he. The man turned, and, taking his weapon, fled back to the fighting. "To the battle!" cried the Forkbeard. "To the battle!"

"They cannot be held!" cried a man. "They will sweep the camp!"

"To the battle!" cried the Forkbeard.

We ran madly toward the fighting.

There, already lifted, we saw the signal spear of Svein Blue Tooth. About it swept Kurii. It was like a flag on an island. At its foot stood the mighty Rollo, striking to the left and right with his ax. No Kur who approached the signal spear did not die. Hundreds of men, in ragged, scattered lines, strung out laterally, accompanied us. Kurii, overextended, meeting this new resistance, to piercing howls, fell back, to regroup for another charge.

"Form lines!" cried Svein Blue Tooth. "Form lines!" The Blue Tooth, their Jarl, was with them! Men fought to take their place, under his eyes, in the first line.

The Blue Tooth himself now stood with Rollo, his own hand on the signal spear.

We saw the overlapping shields of the Kurii line, the axes. There must have been better than two thousand Kurii formed.

Then, to our surprise, from within the Kurii lines we saw two or three hundred slave girls whipped forth. They were bound together in fours and fives. Some were bound together by the wrists, others by the ankles, some by the waist, many by the throat. They were cattle, caught and tethered in the camp, in the confusion, by Kurii. They were to be used to break our lines. I saw Aelgifu, Pudding, among them. Her wrists were pulled out from the side of her body, bound to the wrist of a girl on either side, as they themselves were fastened. We heard the cracking of whips, and the cries of pain. Faster and faster ran the girls toward us, fleeing the whips. Behind them, rapidly, the Kurii advanced.

"Charge!" cried the Svein Blue Tooth. The lines of men, too, hurtled forward.

Not ten yards before the clash took place, Svein Blue Tooth and his lieutenants before the running line, as the girls, under the whips of Kurii, fled, terrified, seeing the axes, the leveled weapons, toward them, made a sign no bond-maid of the north mistakes, the belly sign. Almost as one the girls, crying out, flung themselves to their bellies among the bodies and the charge of the men of Torvaldsland, missing not a step, took its way over them, striking the startled Kurii with an unimpeded impact. I cut down one of the Kurii with its whip.