And then, throwing his ax to his left shoulder, holding it there by his left
hand the turned and faxed the Sardar, and lifted his fist, clenched. It was not
only a sign of defiance to Priest-Kings, but the fist, the sign of the hammer.
It was the sign of Thor. "We can carry no more," cried one of his men. "Nor
shall we," laughed Ivar. "The circle? Cried one. "Leave it for the people to
see," laughed Ivar. "That it is only gold on a wheel of clay!" He turned to face
me. "I want passage to Torvaldsland," I said. "I hunt beast." "Kurii? He asked.
"Yes," I said. "You are mad," he said. "Less mad I expect than Ivar Forkbeard,"
I said "My serpent," said he, " is not a vessel on which one may book passage."
"I play Kaissa," I said. "The voyage north will be long," he said. "I am skilled
at the game," I said. "Unless you are quite good, I shall beat you." We heard
the people screaming outside. I heard one of the beams in the ceiling crack. The
roar of the flames seemed deafening. "We shall die in the temple if we do not
soon flee," said one of his me. Of all those in the temple, I think only I, and
Ivar Forkbeard, and the giant, he of incredible stature, who had fought with
such frenzy, did not seem anxious. He did not seem even aware of the flames. He
carried a sack of plate at his back, heavy and bulging, which had been given to
him by other men, that he might carry it. "I, too, am skilled at the game," said
Ivar Forkbeard. "Are you truly good?" "I am good,:" I said. "Whether I am as
good as you, of course, I shall not know until we play." "True," said Forkbeard.
"I sahll join you at your ship," I said. "Do so," said he. The he turned to one
of his me. "Keep close to me the coins brought as offerings by the poor to the
temple of Kassau," he said. These coins had now been placed in the large, single
bow. "Yes, Captain," said the man. The rear wall, too, of the temple now caught
fire, I heard another beam in the ceiling crack. There were sparks in the air.
They stung my face. The bond-maids, their bodies exposed to them, cried out in
pain. "Open the other gate!" cried Ivar Forkbeard. Hysterically, crowding, those
citizens of Kassau who had, weeping, terified, been lying on their stomachs in
the dirt, beneath the burning roof, leapt to their feet and fled through the
door. Ivar permitted them to leave the temple. "They are coming out!" cried a
voice from the outside. We heard angry men running to the door, people turning
the movements of chains, flails and rakes. "Now let us leave" said Ivar
Forkbear. "You will never get us to the ship," said the slender girl. "You will
hurry, pretty little bond-maids, and you, too, my large-breasted lovely," said
Ivar, indicating black-vel-veted Aelgifu, "or you will be cut out of the coffle
by your heads." "Open the door,:" he said. The door was swung open. "To the
ships," he cried. "Hurry, my pretties," he laughed, striking the slender blond
girl, and others of them, sharply with the palm of his hand. His men, too, the
girls between them, pushed through the door. "They are coming out here!" cried a
voice, a man in the crowd of the poor, a peasant, turning about, seeing us. But
many of those in the crowd were clasping loved ones, and friends, as they
escaped from the other door. Swiftly, down the dirt street to the wharves from
the temple, stirding, but not running, moved Ivar Forkbeard with his men, and
his loot, both that of female flesh and gold. Many of the peasants, and
fishermen, and other poor people, who had not found places in the temple, turned
about. Several of them began to follow us, lifting flails and great scythes.
Some carried chains, others hoes. They had no leadership. Like wolves, crying
out, shouting , lifting their fists, they ran behind us as we made our way
toward the wharves. Then a rock fell among us, and another. Noen of them cared
to rush upon the axes of the men of Torvaldsland. "Save us!" cried the slender
blond girl. "You are men! Save us!" At her cries many of the men seemed
emboldened and rushed more closely about us, but swings of the great axes kept
them back. "Gather together!" we heard. "Charge!" We saw Gurt, in his black
satin, rallying them. They had lacked a leader. They had one now. Ivar Forkbeard
then took Aelgifu by the hair and turned her, so that those following might see.
"Stop!" cried Gurt to them. The single-baled edge of the great ax lay at
Aelgifu's throat; her head was bent back. For Forkbeard, his left hand in her
hair, his right hand just below the head of the ax, grinned at Gurt. "Stop,"
said Gurt, moaning, crushed. "do not fight them! Let them go!" Ivar Forkbeard
released Aelgifu and thrust her ruderly, stumbling, ahead of him. "Hurry!"
called Ivar Forkbeard to his men. "Hurry bright-fleshed ones," called he to the
fettered, burdened coffled bon-mids. Behind us, we heard the roof of the temple,
collapese, I looked back. Smoke stained the sky. A hundred yards from the
wharves we saw a crowd of angry men, perhaps two hundred, blocking the way. They
held gaff, harpoons, even pointed stick. Some carried crash hooks and others
chisels, and iron levers. "You see," cried the blond, girl, delightedly, "my
bondage is short!" "Citizens of Kassau!" called out Ivar Forkbeard cheerily.
"Greetings from Ivar Forkbeard!" The men looked at him, tense, hunched over,
weapons ready, angry. Forkbeard then, grinning, slung his ax over his left
shoulder, dropping it into the broad leather loop by which it may be carried,
its head behind his head and to the left. This loop is fixed in a broad leather
belt worn from the left shoulder to the right hip, fastened there by a hook ,
that the weight of the ax will not turn the belt, which fits into a ring in the
otherwise unarmed, carry a knife at their master belt. All men of Torvaldsland,
incidentally, even if otherwise unarmed, carry a knife at their master belt. The
sword, when carried, and it often is, is commonly supported might be mentioned,
the common Gorean practice. It can also, of course, be hung, by its sheath and
sheath straps, form the master belt, which is quite adequate, being a stout
heavy belt, to hold it. It is called the master belt, doubtless, to distinguish
it from the ax belt and the sword belt, and because it is, almost always worn. A
pouch, of course, and other accoutrements my hang, too, from it. Gorean
garments, generally, do not contain pockets. Some say the master belt gets its
name be cause it is used sometimes in the disciplining of bond-maids. This seems
to be a doubtful origin for the name. It is true, however, questions of the
origin of the name aside, that bond-maids, stripped, are often taught obedience
under its lash. Ivar Forkbeard reached out his hands and took from one of his
men the bowl of coins which the poor had brought as their pitiful offerings to
the temple of Kassau. Then, smiling, by hadfuls he hurled the coins to the right
and to the left. Tense, the men watched him. One of those coins, of small
denomination though they might be, was day's wages on the docks of Kassau. More
coins, in handfuls, showered to the street, to the sides of the men. "Fight!"
screamed the blond girl. "Fight!" One of the men, suddenly, reached down and
snatched one. Then, w
ith a great, sweeping gesture, Ivar Forkbeard emptied the
bowl of coins, scattering them in a shower of coper and iron over the men. Two
more men reached down to snatch a coin. "Fight!" screamed the blond girl.
"Fight!" The first man, scrabbling in the dirt, picked up another coin, and the
another. Then the second and third man found, each, another coin. Then the
others, agonized, unable longer to resist, scurried to the left and right, their
weapons discarded, and fell to their knees snatching coins. "Cowards!" Slenn!"
wept the blond girl. Then she cried out in misery, half choked by the coffle
loop on her throat, as she found herself hurried, fettered and burdened with the
others, through the workers of Kassau. We brushed through the scrabbling workers
and saw before us the wharf, and the serpent, sleek and swift, of Ivar
Forkbeard, at its moorings. Ten men had remained at the ship. Eight held bows,
with arrows at the string; none had dared to approach the ship; the short bow of
the Gorean north, wit its short, heavy arrows, heavily headed, lacks the range
and power of the peasant bow of the south, that now, too, the property of the
rencers of the delta, but at short range, within a hundred and fifty yards, it
can administer a considerable strike. It has, too, the advantage that it is more
manageable in close quarters than the peasant box resembling somewhat the
Tuchuck bow of layered horn in this respect. It is more useful in close combat
on a ship, for example, than would be the peasant bow. Too, it is easier to fire
it through a thole port, the oar withdrawn. The two other men stood ready with
knives to cut the ooring ropes. The men of Ivar Forkbeard threw their bulging
cloaks, filled with gold and plate, into the ship. Ivar Forkbeard looked back.
We heard, in the distance, a muffle d crash. A wall of the temple had fallen.
Then, amoment later, we heard the falling of another wall. Smoke, in angry
billows, black and fiery, climbed the sky above Kassau. "I shall fetch a
belonging or two," I said, " and be with you presenlty." "Do not delay
overlong," suggested Ivar Forkbeard. "Very well," I said. I ran to the yard of a
tavern near the docks. There I unsaddled, unbridled and freed the tarn I had
ridden north. "Fly!" I commanded it. It smote the air with its wings, and beat
its way into the smoky skies of Kassau. I saw it turn toward the southeast. I
smiled. In such a direction, I knew, lay the mountains of Thentis. In those
mountains had the borebearers of the bird been bred. I thought of the webs of
spiders and turtles running to the sea. How fantastic, how strange, I thought,
is the blood of beasts, and I realized, too, that I was a beast, and wondered on
what might be the nature of those instincts which must be my own. I hurled a
golden tarn disk to the ground, to pay for lodging in Kassau, and the care of
the bird. I would leave the saddle. But from it I took the saddlebags,
containing some belongings, and some gold, and, too, the bedroll of fur and
boskhide. From it, too, I took, in its waterproof sheath, the great bow, and its
arrows, forty arrows flight and sheaf, I looked after the tarn. Already it had
gone, disappearing in the smoking sky above Kassau. I had booked better passage
to Torvaldsland. I turned and ran back to the wharf. Eight bows were trained on
me; eight arrows lay ready at the taut string. "Do not fire," called Ivar
Forkbeard to his bowmen. He grinned. " He plays Kaissa." I threw my gear into
the ship, and, bow in hand, leaped into the serpent. "Cast off," said Ivar
Forkbeard. The two mooring ropes were flung free of the mooring cleats. They
were not cut. The bowmen took their places, with their fellows, on the benches.
The serpent backed from the pier and, in the harbor, turned. The red-and-white
striped sail, snapping, unfolding, was dropped from the spar. Between the
benches, amidships, among piles of loot, their wrists fettered behind them, sat
the naked bondmaids, and Aelgifu, in her torn, black velvet. They were still in
throat coffle. Their ankles had been crossed, and lashed tightly with binding
fiber. Aelgifus shoes, I noted, had been removed, and her woolen hose; this was
done that her ankles and feet, bared now like those of the bond-maids, might be
as securely tied. No Gorean puts binding fiber over shoes or hose. It seemed
Aelgifu, proud and rich, would go barefoot, like a peasant wench or a stripped
bon-maid, by the will of Ivar Forbeard, until her ransom was paid on the skerry
of Einar five nights from this night, by the rune-stone of the Torvaldsmark. She
alone of the women, though fettered and bound, and in coffle, did not seem
unduly upset. Ivar Forbeard went to the bond-maids. He looked down on the blond,
slender gir. The coffle loop was on her throat. She sat, with her legs drawn up,
her ankles crossed moved her wrists in the fetters; there was small sound as the
three-inch joining link moved in the welded rings of the fetters. "It seems your
bondage," said he, "pretty maid, will not be as short as you had hoped." She
looked down. "There is no escape," he tole her. She sobbed. The men of
Torvaldsland began to sing at the oars. Ivar Forkbeard reached down to the
planking on the deck and picked up Aelgifu's shoes and hose, where they had been
discarded when they had been removed and her ankle bound. He threw them over the
side. Then he joined me at the stern. We could see ment at the docks. Some were
even attempting to rig a coasting vessel to purseu the serpent. But they would
not rig it. It was pointless. The men of Torvaldsland sang with great voices.
The oars, two men to an oars lifted and dipped. The helmsman leaned on the
tiller of the great steering oar. Behind us we could see the smoke of the
burning temple. Too, it seemed, the fires had spread elsewhere in Kassau,
doubtless carried by the wind. We could now see those at the dock, and even
those who had been bestirring themselves with the coasting vessel, returning to
the town. We heard the ringing of the great bar which hung on its timber frame
outside the temple. The town was afire. The men of Kassau left the docks,
hurrying up the dirt streets, to take up their new labors. Behind us, amidhsips,
we heard the weeping of women fettered bon-maids being carried north to serve
harsh massters. The smoke billowed high in the sky above Kassau. We could hear,
clearly, carrying over the water, the ringing of the great bar outside the
temple. The men of Torvaldsland singing, the oars lifting and dipping, the
serpent of Ivar Forkbeard took its way from the harbor of Kassau. Chapter 4 THE
FORKBEARD AND I RETURN TO OUR GAME Ivar Forkbeard, leaning over the side of his
serpent, studied the coloring of the water. Then he reached down and scooped up
some in the palm of his hand, testing its temperature. "We are one day's
rowing," said he, "from the skerry of Einar and th rune-stone of the
Torvaldsmark." "How do you know this?" I asked. We had been out of sight of land
for two days, and, the night preceding, had been, with shortened sail, swept
eastward by high winds. "There is plankton here," said Ivar, "that of the banks
south of the skerry of Einar, and the temperarutre of the water tells me that we
are now
in the stream of Torvald, which moves eastward to the coast and then
north." The stream of Torvald is a current, as a broad river in the sea, pasangs
wide, whose temperature is greater than that of the surrounding water. Without
it, much of Torvaldsland, bleak as it is, would be only a forzen waste.
Torvcliffs, inlets and mountasin. Its arable soil is thin and found in patches.
The size of the average farm is very small. Good farms is often by sea, in small
boats. Without the stream of Tovald it would probably be I possible to raise
cereal crops in sufficient quantity to fee even its relatively sparse
population. There is often not enough food under any conditions, particularly I
n northern Torvaldsland, and famine is not known. In such cases men feed on
bark, and lichens and seaweed. It is not strange that the young men of
torvaldsland often look to the sea, and beyond it, for their fortunes. The
stream of Torvald is regarded by the men of Torvaldsland as a gift of Thor,
bestowed upon Torvald, legendary founder and hero of the land, in exchange of a
ring of gold. Ivar Forkgeard went to the mast. Before it sat Aelgifu. She was
chained to it by the neck. Her wrist, in the black, iron fetters of the north,
were now fastened before her body that she could feed herself. There was salt in
her hair. She still wore her black velvet but now it was stained with sea water,
and slat, and was discolored, and stiff, and creased. She was barefoot.
"Tomorrow night," said Ivar Forkbeard to her, " I shall have your ransom money."
She did not deign to speak to him, but looked away. Like the bond-maids, she had
been fed only on cold Sa-Tarna poridge and scraps of dried parist fish. The men
of Toravldsland sometimes guide their vessels by noting the direction of the
waves, breaking against the prow, these correlated with prevailing winds.
Sometimes they use the shadows of the gunwales, failing across the ghwarts,
judging their angles. The sun, too, of couse, is used, and, at night, the stars
give them suitable compass, even in the open sea. It is a matter of their
tradition not to rely on the needle compass, as is done in the south. The Gorean
compass points always to the Sardar, the home of Priest-Kings. The men of
Torvaldsland do not use it. They do not need it. The sextant, however,
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