Marauders of Gor

Chapter 7 The Kur

The next five days were pleasant ones for me.

In the mornings, under the eye of Ottar, keeper of Forkbeard’s farm, I learned the ax.

The blade bit deep into the post.

“More back,” laughed Ottar. “Put more back into it!”

The men cried out with pleasure as the blade then, with a single stroke, split through the post.

Thyri, and other bond-maids, leaped and clapped their hands.

How alive and vital they seemed! Their hair was loose, in the fashion of bond-maids. Their eyes shone; their cheeks were flushed; each inch of them, eachmarvelous imbonded inch of them, was incredibly alive and beautiful. How incredibly feminine they were, so living and uninhlbited and delightful, so utterly fresh, so free, so spontaneous, so open in their emotions and the movements of their bodies; they now moved and laughed and walked, and stood, as women, pride was not permitted them; joy was. Only a kirtle of thin, white wool, split to the belly, stood between their beauty and the leather of their masters.

“Again! Again! Please, my Jarl!” cried Thyri.

Once more the great ax struck the post. It jerked in the earth, and another foot of it, splintering, flew from the ax.

“Well done!” said Ottar.

Then suddenly he struck at me with his own ax. I caught the blow on its handle, with the handle of my ax, and, lifting my left fist, not releasing my ax, hurled him from his feet to his left. He sprawled on the turf and I leaped over him, my ax raised.

“Splendid!” he cried.

The bond-maids cried out with pleasure, Gunnhild, Pouting Lips, Olga, Thyri and others.

Ottar leaped up, laughing, and raised his ax against the delighted girls.

They fled back from him, squealing and laughing.

“Olga,” he said, “there is butter to be churning in the churning shed.”

“Yes, my Jarl,” said she, holding her skirt up, running from the place of our exercises.

“Gunnhild, Pouting Lips,” said he, “to the looms.”

“Yes, Jarl,” said they, turning, and hurrying toward the hall. Their looms lay against its west wall.

“You, little wench,” said Ottar to Thyri.

She stepped back. “Yes, Jarl,” she said.

“You,” he said, “gather verr dung in your kirtle and carry * to the sul patch!”

“Yes,Jarl,” she laughed, and turned away. I watched her, as she ran, barefoot, to do his bidding. She was exquisite.

“You other lazy girls,” cried Ottar, addressing the remaining bond-maids, “is it your wish to be cut into strips and fed to parsit fish?”

“No, my Jarl!” they cried.

“To your labors!” cried he.

Shrieking they turned about and fled away.

“Now, twice more,” said Ottar to me, his hand on his broad black belt inlaid with gold. “Then we will find another post!”

There are many tricks in the use of the ax;feints are often used, and short strokes; and the handle, jabbing and punching; a full swing, of course, should it miss, exposes the warrior; certain elementary stratagems might be mentioned; the following are typical: it is pretended to have taken a full swing, even to the cry of the kill, but the swing is held short and not followed through; the antagonist then, if unwary, may rush forward, and be taken, the ax turned, offguard, by the back cut, from the left to right; sometimes it is possible, too, lf the opponent carries his shield too high, to step to the left, and, with a looping stroke, cut off the shield arm; a low stroke, too, can be dangerous, for the human foot, as swift as a sapling, may be struck away; defensively, of course, if one can lure the full stroke and yet escape it, one has an instant to press the advantage; this is sometimes done by seeming to expose more of the body than one wary to the ax might, that to tempt the antagonist, he thinking he is dealing with an unskilled foe, to prematurely commit the weight of his body to a full blow. The ax of Torvaldsland is one of the most fearful of the weapons on Gor. If one can get behind the ax, of course, one can meet it; but it is not easy to get behind the ax of one who knows its use, he need only strike one blow; he is not likely to launch it until it is assured of its target.

An Ahn later the Forkbeard, accompanied by Ottar, keeper of his farm, and Tarl Red Hair, now of Forkbeard’s Landfall, inspected his fields.

The northern Sa-Tarna, in its rows, yellow and sprouting, was about ten inches high. The growing season at this latitude, mitigated by the Torvaldstream, was about one hundred and twenty days. This crop had actually been sown the preceding fall, a month following the harvest festival. It is sown early enough, however, that, before the deep frosts temporarily stop growth, a good root system can develop.Then, in the warmth of the spring, in the softening soil, the plants, hardy and rugged, again assert themselves. The yield of the fall-sown Sa-Tarna is, statistically, larger than that of the spring-sown varieties.

“Good,” said the Forkbeard. He climbed to his feet. He knocked the dirt from the knees of his leather trousers. “Good,” he said.

Sa-Tarna is the major crop of the Forkbeard’s lands, but, too, there are many gardens, and, as I have noted, bosk and verr, too, are raised. Ottar dug for the Forkbeard and myself two radishes and we, wiping the dirt from them, ate them. The tospits, in the Forkbeard’s orchard, which can grow at this latitude, as the larma cannot, were too green to eat. I smiled, recalling that tospits almost invariably have an odd number of seeds, saving the rarer, long-stemmed variety. I do not care too much for tospits, as they are quite bitter. Some men like them. They are commonly used, sliced and sweetened with honey, and in syrups, and to flavor, with their juices, a variety of dishes. They are also excellent in the prevention of nutritional deficiencies at sea, in long voyages, containing, I expect, a greatdeal of vitamin C. They are sometimes called the seaman’s larma. They are a fairly hardfleshed fruit, and are not difficult to dry and store. On the serpents they are carried in small barrels, usually kept, with vegetables, under the overturned keel of the longboat. We stopped by the churning shed, where Olga, sweating, had finished making a keg of butter. We dipped our fingers into the keg.It was quite good.

“Take it to the kitchen,” said the Forkbeard.

“Yes, my Jarl,” she said.

“Hurry, lazy girl,” said he. “Yes, my Jarl,” she said, seizing the rope handle of the keg and, leaning to the right to balance it, hurried from the churning shed. Earlier, before he had begun his tour of inspection, Pudding had come to him, and knelt before him, holding a plate of Sa-Tarna loaves. The daughter of Gurt, the Administrator of Kassau, was being taught to bake. She watched fearfully as the Forkbeard bit into one.

“It needs more salt,” he had said to her.

She shuddered.

“Do you think you are a bond-maid of the south?” he asked.

“No, my Jarl,” she had said.

“Do you think it is enough for you to be pleasant in the furs?” he asked.

“Oh, no, my Jarl!” she cried.

“Bond-maids of the north must know how to do useful things,” he told her.

“Yes, my Jarl!” she cried.

“Take these,” said he, “to the stink pen and, with them, swill the tarsks!”

“Yes, my Jarl,” she wept, leaping to her feet, and fleeing away.

“Bond-maid!” called he.

She stopped, and turned.

“Do you wish to go to the whipping post?” he asked. This is a stout post, outside the hall, of peeled wood, with an iron ring near the top, to which the wrists of a bond-maid, crossed, are lashed over her head. Near the bosk shed there is a similar post, with a higher ring, used for thralls.

“No, my Jarl!” cried Pudding.

“See then,” said he, “that your baking improves!”

“Yes, myJarl,” she said, and fled away.

“It is not bad bread,” said Ivar Forkbeard to me, when shehad disappeared from sight.

He broke me a piece. We finished it. It was really quite good, but, as the Forkbeard ha said, it could have used a dashmore salt. When we left the side of the hall we had stopped, briefly, to watch Gunnhild and Pouting Lips at the standing looms. They worked well and stood beautifully, under the eyes of the Forkbeard. Otto had then joined us and we had begun our inspection. Shortly before concluding our inspection, we had stopped at the shed of the smith, whose name was Gautrek. We had then continued on our way. On the way back to the hall, cutting through the tospit trees, we had passed by the sul patch. In it, his back to us, hoeing, was the young broad-shouldered thrall, in his white tunic, with cropped hair. He did not see us. Approaching him, her kirtle held high in two hands, itfilled with verr dung, was blond, collared Thyri.

“She has good legs,” said Ottar.

We were quite close to them; neither of them saw us. Thyri, in the afternoon, had made many trips to the sul patch. This, however, was the first time she had encountered the young man. Earlier he had been working with other thralls at the shore, with parsit nets.

“Ah,” said he, “greetings, my fine young lady of Kassau.’

She looked at him, her eyes flashing.

“Did you think in Kassau,” he asked, “that you would one day be dunging the fields of one of Torvaldsland?”

She said nothing to him.

“I did not know in Kassau,” said he, “that you had such fine legs.” He laughed. “Why did you not, in Kassau,” he asked, ‘show us what fine legs you have?”

She was furious.

She, holding her kirtle with her left hand, angrily scattered the dung about the sul plants. It would be left to a thrall to hoe it in about the plants.

“Oh, do not lower your kirtle, Thyri,” said he. “Your brand is quite lovely. Will you not show it, again, to Wulfstan of Kassau?”

Angrily she drew her kirtle up, revealing her thigh. Then, furiously, she thrust it down.

“How do you like it, Thyri,” asked he, “to find that you are now a girl whose belly lies beneath the sword?”

“It lies not beneath your sword,” she snapped. “I belong to free men!”

Then, with the brazenness of a bond-maid, she, Thyri, who had been the fine young lady of Kassau, threw her kirtle up over her hips and, leaning forward, spit furiously at the thrall. He leaped toward her but Ottar was even quicker. He struck Wulfstan, the thrall, Tarsk, behind the back of his neck with the handle of his ax. Wulfstan fell stunned. In an instant Ottar had bound the young man’s hands before his body. He then jerked him to his knees by the iron collar.

“You have seen what your ax can do to posts,” said he to me, “now let us see what it can do to the body of a man.” He then threw the young thrall to his feet, holding him by the collar, his back to me. The spine, of course, would be immediately severed; moreover, part of the ax will, if the blow be powerful, emerge from the abdomen. It takes, however, more than one blow to cut a body, that of a man, in two. To strike more than twice, however, is regarded as clumsiness. The young man stood, numbly, caught. Thyri, her kirtle down, shrank back, her hand before her mouth.

“You have seen,” said Ottar, to the Forkbeard, “that he has been bold with a bond-maid, the property of free men.”

“Thralls and bond-maids, sometimes,” said I, “banter.” “He would have put his hands upon her,” said Ottar. That seemed true, and was surely more serious. Bond-maids were, after all, the property of free men. It was not permitted for a thrall to touch them.

“Would you have touched her?” asked the Forkbeard.

“Yes, my Jarl,” whispered the young man.

“You see!” cried Ottar. “Let Red Hair strike!”

I smiled. “Let llim be whipped instead,” I said.

“No!” cried Ottar.

“Let it be as Red Hair suggests,” said the Forkbeard. He then looked at the thrall. “Run to the whipping post,” he said. “Beg the first free rnan who passes to beat you.”

“Yes, my Jarl,” he said.

He would be stripped and bound, wrists over his head, to the post at the bosk shed.

“Fifty strokes,” said the Forkbeard.

“Yes, my Jarl,” said the young man.

“The lash,” said the Forkbeard, “will be the snake.”

His punishment would be heavy indeed. The snake is a single-bladed whip, weighted, of braided leather, eight feet long and about a half an inch to an inch thick. It is capable of lifting the flesh from aman’s back. Sometimes it is set with tiny particles of metal. It was not impossible that he would die under its blows. The snake is to be distinguished from the much more common Gorean slave whip, with its five broad striking surfaces. The latter whip, commonly used on females, punishes terribly; it has, however, the advantage of not marking the victim. No one is much concerned, of course, with whether or not a thrall is marked. A girl with an unmarked back, commonly, will bring a much hlgher price tha.n a comparable wench, if her back be muchly scarred. Men commonly relish a smooth female, except for the brand scar. In Turia and Ar, it might be mentioned it is not uncommon for a female slave to be depilated.

The young thrall looked at me. It was to me that he owed his life.

“Thank you, my Jarl,” he said. Then he turned and, wrists still bound before his body, as Ottar had fastened them, ran toward the bosk shed.

“Go, Ottar, to the forge shed,” said the Forkbeard, grinning. Tell Gautrek to pass by the bosk shed.”

Ottar grinned. “Good,” he said. Gautrek was the smith: I did not envy the young man.

“And Ottar,” said the Forkbeard, “see that the thrall returns to his work in the morning.”

“I shall,” said Ottar, and turned toward the forge shed.

“I hear, Red Hair,” said Ivar Forkbeard, “that your lessons with the ax proceed well.”

“I am pleased if Ottar should think so,” I said.

“I, too, am pleased that he should think so,” said Ivar Forkbeard, “for that is indication that it is true.” Then he turned away. “I shall see you tonight at the feast,” he said.

“Is there to be another feast?” I asked. “What is the occasion?”

There had been feasts the past four nights.

“That we are pleased to feast,” said Ivar Forkbeard. “That is occasion enough.”

He then turned away.

I turned to the girl, Thyri. Istood over her. “Part of what occurred here,” I told her, “is your fault, bond-maid.”

She put her head down. “I hate him,” she said, “but I would not have wanted him to be killed.” She looked up. “Am I to be punished, my Jarl?” she asked.

“Yes,” I told her.

Fear entered her eyes. How beautiful she was.

“But with the whip of the furs,” I laughed.

“I look forward eagerly, my Jarl,” laughed she, “to my punishment.”

“Run,” said I.

She turned and ran toward the hall, but, after a few steps turned, and faced me. “I await your discipline, my Jarl,” she cried, and then turned again, and fled, that fine young lady of Kassau, barefoot and collared, now only a bond-maid, to the hall, to the furs, to await her discipline.

“Is it only a bond-maid, my Jarl,” asked Thyri, “who can know these pleasures?”

“It is said,” I said, “that only a bond-maid can know them.”

She lay on her back, her head turned toward me. I lay at her side, on one elbow. Her left knee was drawn up; about her left ankle, locked, was the black-iron fetter, with its chain. On her throat was the collar of iron.

“Then, myJarl,” said she. “I am happy that I am a bond-maid.”

I took her again in my arrns.

“Red Hair!” called Ivar Forkbeard. “Come with mel”

Rudely I thrust Thyri from me, leaving her on the furs.

In moments, ax in its sheath on my back, I joined the Forkbeard.

Outside were gathered several men, both of Ivar’s ship and of the farm. Arnong them, eyes terrified, crookedbacked, was a cringing, lame thrall.

“Lead us to what you have found,” demanded the Forkbeard.

We followed the man more than four pasangs, up the slopes, leading to the summer pastures.

Then, on a height, from which we could see, far below the farm and ship of Ivar Forkbeard, we stopped. Behind a large rock, the cringing thrall, frightened, indicated what he had found. Then he did not wish to look upon it.

I was startled.

“Are there Larls in these mountains?” I asked.

The men looked at me as though I might have been insane.

“No sIeen did this,” said I.

We Iooked down at the remains of a bosk, torn apart eaten through. Even large bones had been broken, snapped apparently in rnighty jaws, the marrow sucked from thern. The brains, too, had been scooped, with a piece of wood, from the skull.

“Did you not know,” asked Ivar Forkbeard, “of what animal this is the work?”

“No,” I said.

“This has been killed by one of the Kurii,” he said.

For four days we hunted the animal, but we did not find it. Though the kill was recent, we found no trace of the predator.

“We must find it,” had said the Forkbeard. “It must learn it cannot with impunity hunt on the lands of Forkbeard.”

But we did not find it. We did not have a feast, as we had intended, on the night on which the bosk had been found eaten, nor on the next nights. In vain we hunted. The men grew angry, sullen, apprehensive. Even the bond-maids no longer laughed and sported. There might, for all we knew, be somewhere in the lands of Ivar Forkbeard one of the Kurii.

“It must have left the district,” said Ottar, on the fourth night.

“There have been no further kills,” pointed out Gautrek, the smith, who had hunted with us.

“Do you think it is the one who killed the verr last month “ I asked Ottar, “and similarly disappeared?”

“I do not know,” said Ottar. “It could be, for those of the Kurii are quite rare this far to the south.”

“It may have been driven fram its own kind,” said the Forkbeard, “one too vicious even to be tolerated in its own caves.7’

“It might, too,” said Ottar, “be insane or ignorant.”

“Perhaps,” suggested Gorm, “it is diseased or injured, and can no longer hunt the swift deer of the north?”

In these cases, too, I supposed one of the Kurii might be driven, by teeth and claws, from its own caves. Kurii, I suspected, those of Gor as well as those of the ships, did not tolerate weakness.

“At any rate,” I said, “it seems now to be gone.”

“We are safe now,” said Gautrek.

“Shall we have a feast?” asked Gorm.

“No,” said the Forkbeard. “This night my heart is not in feasting.”

“At least the beast is gone,” said Gautrek.

“We are safe now,” said Gorm.

I awakened in the darkness. Thyri’s body was snuggled against mine; she was asleep; I had not used her this night. She was fettered, of course. I lay very still.

For some reason I was uneasy.

I heard the heavy breathing of the men in the hall. At my side, I heard Thyri’s breathing, too, deep and soft, that of the smaller lungs of a girl.

I did not move. I felt, or thought I felt, a breath of fresh air. I lay in the darkness. I did not move.

Then I smelled it.

With a cry of rage I leaped to my feet on the couch hurling away the furs.

In the same instant I felt myself seized in great, clawed paws and lifted high into the air of the hall. I could not see my assailant. Then I was hurled over the couch against the curved wall of turf and stone.

“What is going on!” I heard cry.

Thyri, awakened, screamed.

I lay, stunned, at the foot of the wall, on the couch.

“Torches!” cried the Forkbeard. “Torches!”

Men cried out; bond-maids screamed.

I heard the sound of feeding.

Then in the light of a torch, lifted by the Forkbeard, lit from being thrust beneath the ashes of the fire pit, we saw it.

It was not more than ten feet from me. It lifted its face from the half-eaten body of a man. Its eyes, large, round, blazed in the light of the torch. I heard the screaming of bond-maids, the movements of their chains. Their ankles were held by their fetters.

“Weapons!” cried the Forkbeard. “Kur! Kur!”

I heard men cry. The beast stood there, blinking, bent over the body. It was unwilling to surrender it. Its fir was sable, mottled with white. Its ears, large, pointed and wide, were laid back flat against its head. It was perhaps seven feet tall and weighed four or five hundred pounds. Its snout was wide, leathery. There were two nostrils, slitlike. Its tongue was dark. It had two rows of fangs, four of which were particularly prominent, those in the first row of fangs, above and below, in the position of canines; of these, the upper two were particularly long, and curved. Its arms were longer and larger than its legs; it held the body it was devouring in clawed, pawlike hands, yet six-digited, extrajointed, almost like tentacles. It hissed, and howled and, eyes blazing, fangs bared, threatened us.

No one could seem to move. It stood there in the torchlight, threatening us, unwilling to surrender its body. Then, behind it I saw an uplifted ax, and the ax struck down, cutting its backbone a foot beneath its neck. It slumped forward, over the couch half falling across the body of a hysterical bond-maid. Behind it I saw Rollo. He did not seem in a frenzy; nor did he seem human; he had struck, when others, Gautrek, Gorm, I, even the Forkbeard, had been unable to do other than look upon it with horror. Rollo again lifted the ax.

“No!” cried Ivar Forkbeard. “The battle is done!”

The giant lowered his ax and, slowly, returned to his couch, to sleep.

One of his men touched its snout with the butt of his spear, and then thrust it into the beast’s mouth; the butt of the spear was torn away; the bond-maids screamed. “It is still alive!” cried Gorm.

“Get it out of here,” said Ivar Forkbeard. “Beware of the jaws.

With chains and poles the body of the Kur was dragged and thrust from the hall. We took it outside the palisade, on the rocks. It was getting light.I knelt beside it.

It opened its eyes.

“Do you know me?” I asked.

“No,” it said.

“This is a small Kur,” said the Forkbeard. “They are generally larger. Note the mottling of white. Those are disease marks.”

“I hope,” I said, “that it was not because of me that it came to the hall.”

“No,” said the Forkbeard. “In the dark they have excellent vision. If it had been you it sought, it would have been you it killed.”

“Why did it enter the hall?” I asked.

“Kurrii,” said Ivar Forkbeard, “are fond of human flesh.”

Humans, like other animals, I knew, are regarded by those of the Kurii as a form of food.

“Why did it not run or flight?” I asked.

The Forkbeard shrugged. “It was feeding,” he said. Then he bent to the beast. “Have you hunted here before?” he asked. “Have you killed a verr here, and a bosk?”

“And, in the hall,” it said, its lips drawing back from its jaws, “last night a man.”

“Kill it,” said Ivar Forkbeard.

Four spears were raised, but they did not strike.

“No,” said Ivar Forkbeard. “It is dead.”