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
