Marauders of Gor (20 page)

           
"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, myJarl," 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 a
 
man'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. I
 
stood 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 sheO "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.