“Strike,” said Thorgard.
On Thassa, some hundreds of yards offshore, were ships. One of these I noted was Black Sleen, the ship of Thorgard. Gorm had told us that some of his men had escaped. They had managed to flee to the ship, and make away.
Beside me, agonized, I saw the eyes of Hilda.
“Strike,” said Thorgard.
It would have been a simple blow. The men of Ivar Forkbeaard were stunned.
Ivar returned to us. “I slipped,” he said.
Gorm and others ran to the cliff. Thorgard, seizing his opportunity, had turned and plunged to the waters below. We could see him swimming. From Black Sleen we saw a small boat being lowered, rowing toward him.
“It was careless of me,” admitted the Forkbeard.
Hilda crept to him, and knelt before him. She put her head softly to his feet, and then lifted her head and, tears in her eyes, looked up at him. “A girl is grateful,” she said, “-my Jarl.”
“To the pen with you, Wench,” said the Forkbeard.
“Yes,” she said, “my Jarl! Yes!” She leapt up. When she turned about, the Forkbeard dealt her a mighty blow, swift and stinging, with the flat of his sword. She was, after all, only a common bond-maid. She cried out, startled, sobbing, and stumbled more than a dozen steps before she regained her balance. Then she turned and, sobbing, laughing, cried out joyfully, “I love you, my Jarl! I love you!” He raised the weapon again, flat side threatening her, and she turned and, laughing, sobbing, only one of his girls, fled to the pen.
The Forkbeard and I, and the others, returned to the tents of Thorgard of Scagnar.
Svein Blue Tooth was there. We saw, in a long line, shackled, fur matted, Kurii being herded with spear butts through the camp. “The bridge of jewels worked well,” said Svein Blue Tooth to Ivar Forkbeard. “Hundreds, fleeing, were slain by our archers. Arrows of Torvaldsland found the slaughter pleasing.”
“Did any escape?” inquired Ivar.
The Blue Tooth shrugged. “Several,” he said, “but I think the men of Torvaldsland now need fear little the return of any Kur army.”
I thought what he said doubtless true. Single, or scattered, Kuriimight, as before, forage south, but I did not think they would again regroup in vast numbers. They had learned and so, too, had the men of Torvaldsland, that men could stand against them. This fact, red with blood of both beasts and men, had been demonstrated in a remote valley of the north. I smiled to myself. The demonstration would not have been lost, either, on the advanced Kurii of the steel worlds. It was ironic. I, Tarl Cabot, who had abandoned the service of Priest-Kings, had yet, in this far place, been instrumental in their work. The Forkbeard and I, it had been, who had found the arrow of war in the Torvaldsberg, who had touched it to other arrows, which, in hundreds of villages and camps, over thousands of square pasangs of rugged, inlet-cleft terrain, had been carried to the free men of the north, that they might fetch their weapons, rally and, shoulder to shoulder, do battle. And, too, I had fought. It was strange, as it seemed to me, that it should be so. I thought of golden Misk, the Priest-King, of once, long ago, when his antennae had touched the palms of my uplifted hands, and Nest Trust had been pledged between us. Then I dismissed the thought.
I saw, to one side, large Hrolf, from the East, who had fought with us, he leaning on his spear.
We knew little of him. But he had fought well; What else need one know of a man?
“What is to be done with these captive Kurii?” I asked Svein Blue Tooth, indicating the line of imprisoned beasts, some wounded, being driven past us, survivors of the slaughter on the Bridge of Jewels.
“We shall break the teeth from their jaws,” he said. “We shall tear the claws from their paws. They, suitably chained will be used as beasts of burden.”
The great plan of the Others, of the Kurii of the steel worlds, their most profound and brilliant probe of the defenses of Priest-Kings, had failed. Native Kurii, bred from ship’s survivors over centuries, would not, it seemed, if limited to the primitive weapons permitted men, be capable of conquering Gor, isolating the Priest-Kings in the Sardar, until they could be destroyed, or, alternatively, be used to lure the Priest-Kings into a position where they would be forced to betray their own weapons laws, arming men, which would be dangerous, or utilizing their own significant technology, thereby, perhaps, revealing the nature, location and extent oftheir power, information that might then be exploited at a later date by the strategists of the steel worlds. The plan had been brilliant, though careless of the value, if any, placed on Kurii life. I supposed native Kurii did not command the respect of the educated, trained Kurii of the ships. They were regarded, perhaps, as a different, lesser, or inferior breed, expendable in the strategems of their betters. The failure of the Kurii invasion, of course, moved the struggle to a new dimension. I wondered what plans now, alternate plans doubtless formed years or centuries ago, would now be implemented. Perhaps, already, such plans were afoot. I looked at the ragged line of defeated, shackled Kurii. They had failed. But already, I suspected, Kurii, fresh, brilliant, calculating, masters in the steel worlds, in their command rooms, their map rooms and strategy rooms, were, even before the ashes in this remote valley in thenorth had cooled, engaged in the issuance of orders. I looked about at the field of battle, under the cloudy sky. New coded instructions, doubtless, had already been exchanged among the distant steel worlds. The Kur is a tenacious beast. It seems well equipped by its remote, savage evolution to be a dominant life form. Ivar Forkbeard and Svein Blue Tooth might congratulate themselves on their victory. I, myself, more familiar with Kurii, with the secret wars of Priest-Kings, suspected that men had not yet heard the last of such beasts.
But these thoughts were for others, not for Bosk of Port Kar, not for Tarl Red Hair.
Let others fight for Priest-Kings. Let others do war. Let others concern themselves with such struggles. If I had had any duty in these matters, long ago I had discharged it.
Suddenly, for the first time since I had left Port Kar, my left arm, my left leg, the left side of my body, felt suddenly cold, and numb. For an instant I could not move them. I nearly fell. Then it passed. My forehead was covered with sweat. The poison of the blade of Tyros lurked yet in my system. I had come north to avenge the slaying of the wench Telima. This resolution, thehatred, had driven me. Yet it seemed I had failed. In my pouch now lay the armlet, which Ho-Hak had given me in Port Kar, that found where Telima had been attacked. I had failed.
“Are you all right?” asked Ivar.
“Yes,” I said.
“I have found your bow, and your arrows,” said Gorm. “They were among weapons in the loot.”
“I am grateful,” I said. I strung the bow and drew it, and unstrung it. I slipped the quiver, with its arrows, flight and sheaf, over my left shoulder.
“In four days, when supplies can be gathered,” said Svein Blue Tooth, “we shall have a great feast, for this has been a great victory.”
“Yes,” I said, “let us have a great feast, for this has been a great victory.”
Chapter 19 The note
The Kur came that night, the night of the battle, in the light of torches, ringed by men with spears. It held, in sign of truce, over its head, the two parts of a broken ax.
Many men stood about, armed, several with torches. Down a hall of men, standing in the field, came the Kur.
It stopped before Svein Blue Tooth and Ivar Forkbeard, who, on seats of rock, awaited it. Ivar, chewing on a vulo wing, motioned Hilda, and Gunnhild, Pudding and Honey Cake, who, naked and collared, his girls, knelt about him, to withdraw. They crept back, bond-maids, behind him. Their flesh was in the shadows. They knelt.
At the feet of the two leaders the Kur laid the pieces of the broken ax. Then it surveyed the grouping. To the astonishment of all the beast did not address itself to the two leaders.