Ivar had motioned me to silence.
We lay still. Within yards of us, strung out, approaching, was a column of pairs of men, each wearing a yellow scarf Some carried torches. Kurii were not among them. They were led by a large man in swirling cape, and horned helmet, a bearded man. It was Thorgard of Scagnar. He, too, tied at his shoulder, wore a yellow scarf.
They passed.
“Would we not move about more freely,” inquired Ivar Forkbeard, “if we, too, sported scarves of yellow?”
“It is not impossible,” I said.
“Let us borrow some then,” suggested he.
“Verywell,” I agreed.
Two shadows enveloped the last two men in the column of pairs led by Thorgard of Scagnar.
Ivar had thrust the yellow scarf into his belt; I looped mine over the right shoulder, fastening it loosely at the left hip; we left Thorgard’s two men for the Kurii.
In the journey to Ivar’s tent a Kur loomed before us, snarling.
“Foolish beast, stupid animal,” said Ivar, brandishing his scarf, “can you not see the yellow scarf?”
He then brushed past the Kur. I felt its fur as I moved by it. It was smooth, not unpleasant to the touch, some two inches or so in depth. Its body, beneath the fur, was hot, large.
The Kur, doubtless, could not understand Gorean. If it had it might have slain us both. It could see the scarf, however. Reluctantly, snarling, it let us pass it.
Shortly thereafter Ivar, fists clenched, stood on the site of his camp. The tent had been half burned, and poles were down. It was deserted. There was no sign of life. Boxes lay about. An overturned pan lay in ashes. We saw spilled coins. A piece of rope, cut, lay to one side. The stake, to which the chains of the bond-maids had been fixed, had been torn from the ground.
“Look,” I said to him, throwing back a part of the tent. Ivar joined me. We looked down on the carcass of a dead Kur, its jaws opened, its eyes staring at the moons. Its head was half cut from its body.
“Some man of mine did well,” said the Forkbeard. Then he look about.
“In the morning,” I said, “we will be recognized as not being of Thorgard’s forces. In the morning, we will be hunted.”
“It is quite possible,”. said Ivar, looking at me, “that we are being hunted now, by those from the hall.”
“Our scent is known,” I said. “Yellow scarves will not protect us from those from the hall.”
“What do you propose?” asked Ivar.
“We must flee,” I told him.
“No,” said Ivar. “We must go to the Torvaldsberg.”
“I do not understand,” I said.
“It is time,” he said. He looked about himself, at the ruins of his camp. In the distance we could see buring tents. Too, in the distance, there was a great redness in the sky. Beneath this redness blirned the hall of Svein Blue Tooth. Far off, we could hear the howls of Kurii. “It is time,” said Ivar Forkbeard, turning away from me, “to go to the Torvaldsberg.”
He strode from his camp. I followed him.
It was shortly past noon, on the snowy slopes of the Torvaldsberg.
I looked down into the valley. We could not make out clearly the lineaments of the Kurii pursuing us. They moved rapidly.
They were perhaps a pasang and a halfaway. They carried shlelds, axes.
“Let us continue our journey,” said Ivar.
“Shall we meet them here?” I asked.
‘;No,” said Ivar, “let us continue our journey “
I looked up at the looming crags of the Torvaidsberg. “Itis madness to attempt to climb,” I said. “We do not have ropes, equipment. Neither of us are of the mountain people.
I looked back. The Kurii were now a pasang away, on the rocky, lower slopes, scrambling upward. They had slung thelr shields and axes on their backs. When they came to a sheet of steep ice they did not go around it but, extending thelr claws, climbed it rapidly. The Forkbeard and I had lost several Ehn in circling such obstacles. In snow the Kurii, spreading their large, six-digited appendages, dropped to all fours. For their weight, they did not sink deeply. It had taken the Forkbeard and me an Ahn, wading through crusts of snow, to reach our present position. Kurii, it was evident, would accomplish the same distance in a much shorter time.
When snow gave way to patches of rock they would pause, momentarily, nostrils lowered, reading signs that would have been undetectable to a human. Then they would lift their heads, scan the rocks above them, and proceed swiftly.
Ivar Forkbeard stood up. There was no cover now for us between our present position and the beginning of the steeper heights.
Below us we heard Kurii, seeing him, howl with pleasure.One pointed us out to a fourth who had not yet seen us. Then all of them stood below, leaping, lifting their arms.
“They are pleased,” I said.
The Kurii then. with redoubled speed, began to move toward us.
“Let us continue our journey,” suggested the Forkbeard.