those with it; then, the hall filled with their horrid howling, eyes blazing, led by the Kur with the golden band, frenzied by the blood shriek, they leaped forward, great axes flailing.
Chapter 14 The Forkbeard and I depart from the hall ofSvein Blue Tooth
I saw half of the body of a man spinning crazily past.
Kurii leapt down the long sides of the hall, slashing, cutting men down as they fled to their weapons The wooden shields of Torvaldsland no more stopped the great axes than dried skins of larma fruit, stretched on sewing frames, might have resisted the four-bladed dagger cestus of Anango or the hatchet gauntlet of eastern Skjern.
More than once the blades of the Kurii axes bit through the spines of men, reaching for theirweapons, and splintered, gouging, in the beams of the hall.
I choked in the smoke. My eyes stung. Near me a man screamed. I was knocked from my feet, buffeted in the crowd. For an instant I was conscious only of the dirt floor, the reeds strewn upon it, the mad forest of running feet. My left liand slipped in the dirt, in blood. I was knocked again, but then managed to force my way to my feet. I was carried in the panic-stricken throng a dozen yards in one direction, then, meaninglessly, carried back in the other. I could not even draw my weapon.
The Kur axes fel] again and again. The hall rang with their howling. I saw a man-at-arms lifted, back broken, in the black, furred, tentacled hand of one of the marauders. The thing roared, head back. The white fangs seemed scarlet in the light of the fires from the roof. Then it threw the man more than a hundred feet against the back ot the llall. I saw another man-at-arms hanging from the jaws of a Kur. He was still alive. His eyes betrayed shock, staring blindly outward. I do not think he saw. I suspect he was in pain. He was alive, but I did not think he any longer felt. He doubtless understood what was occurring but, to him, somehow, it did not seem of concern. It was as though it were happening to someone else. Then the Kur’s jaws closed. For the least instant there was a terrifying recognit: ion in the eyes. Then he was bitten through.
I briefly saw Ivar Forkbeard. He was trying to thrust Hilda, held by the arm, toward one of the side rooms, between killing Kurii. He was shouting orders to his men, who clustered about him. Svein Blue Tooth stood on the long table, behind which was his high seat. I could not hear him in the shouting, the screams, the howling of the frenzied Kurii.
A great Kur ax swept near me. Four men, trying to back away, but held as though against a wall by the throng, were cut down.
Those nearest the Kurii tried to crawl back within the throng.
The Kurii axes, in their sweeps, at the edges of the throng, kept us helpless, crowded together.
Few men could as much as draw their weapons.
Some men, behind Kurii, fled away, out of the great, opened, double doors of the hall. I saw them fleeing, outlined briefly against the fires outside. But outside, too, I saw, silhouetted against the flames, waiting Kurii. Many fled into the axes of the Kurii in the yard of the hall. Then Kurii stood before the threshold, snarling, axes lifted.
Men came before them and threw themselves to their knees, that they might be spared, even were it but for the Ahn, but these, like others, no differences drawn between them, were cut down, destroyed by strokes of the swift axes. Kurii take prisoners only when it pleases them.
I saw several of the Forkbeard’s men manage to slip into one of the side rooms. Gorm, and Ottar, were among them.
I hoped they might make good their escape. Perhaps they could tear out trhe membrane in one of the windows and crawl through and, in the confusion outside, make away.
The Forkbeard, to my surprise, momentarily reappeared trom within the room, looking about. His face looked red in the fires. He carried his sword.
I did not see Hilda. I assumed she had, with the men, entered the small room. It was my hope that she, and the others, could manage to slip away somehow, perhaps climbing to the catwalk, and dropping over the side of the palisade to the ground below.
I saw then the Forkbeard, one hand on the arm of the strange giant, Rollo, leading him to the door of the small room. Rollo, though the room about him was frenzied wlth Kurii and their killing, did not seem disturbed. His eyes were vacant. He was led like a child to the small room. I noted that his ax, which he always carried, was bloodied. The blood of Kurii, like that of men, is red, and of simllar chemical composition. It is another similarity adduced by Priest-Kings when they wish to argue the equivalence of the warring species. The major difference between the blood content of the Kur and of men is that the plasma of the Kur contains a greater percentage of salt, this acting in water primarily as a protein solvent. The Kur can eat and digest quantities of meat which would kill a man.
Rollo disappeared within the small room.
From my right I heard the scream of a bond-maid. I saw a Kur leash her. He pulled herstruggling, by the neck, choking, to a place to the left of the door. There there waited another Kur, who held in his tentacled hand the leashes of more than twenty bond-maids, who knelt, terrified, about its legs. The Kur who had leashed his catch then handed the leash to the other Kur, who accepted it, addmg it to the others. The girl knelt swiftly among the others. I knew human females were regarded as delicacies by Kurii. The Kur who had taken the girl then took another leash from the interior of his shield, where there were several wrapped about the shield straps; and surveyed the hall A girl, kneeling in the dirt, near the long fire, saw him, and ran screaming away. Methodically, moving her toward a corner of the hall, leash swinging, he followed her.
Behind me I heard the blows of axes. I fought to free myself of the throng.
The axes behind me were the axes of men, and strikin on wood. Turning I saw Svein Blue Tooth and four others trying to splinter their way from the hall. They had difficulty, though, for many men pressed against them.
I saw Ivar Forkbeard nearby. He had not chosen to escape.
His sword was drawn, but it would prove of little efficacy against the great metal shields, the sweeping axes of the Kurii. They could cut a man down before he could approach them, even with the long blade of the North.
The Forkbeard looked about.
There had been more than a thousand men in the hall Surely at least two or three hundred lay dead, most at the walls, at the foot of the walls, under the weapons which, for the most part, they had been unable to touch I saw the Kur who had pursued the bond-maid now again gomg toward that holding area near the door. On her back, then on her side, then on her stomach, rolling and squirming eyes wild, her fingers hooked inside the collar, trying to keep it from choking her, was dragged the bond-maid. Then her leash was surrendered into the keeping of the Kur who held the others, and then the first Kur, leaving his prize in the care of the other, turned about, to hunt yet another delicacy from the herd within the hall.
The Kurii now, on both sides, stood between us and the weapons. The side doors, leading from the hall, were now all closed to us. Kurii, too, stood before the entrance to the hall,axes ready, eyes fiaming. We were, some six or seven hundred men, crowded together, effectively surrounded. At our backs was the western wall of the hall. “Clear rooml” cried Svein Blue Tooth. “Let us use our axes!”
Trying to draw back from the Kurii, approaching slowly great, blood axes ready, terrified men pushed back, further and further.
I managed to free myself from the crowd, and take a position on its fringe, between men and Kurii. If I were cut down I would prefer it to be in a situation where I might move freely. I unsheathed my sword.
I saw the lips of one of the Kurii drawing back.
“Your blade is useless,” said Ivar Forkbeard, now standing at my side.
The Kurii crept closer.
I heard a scream from a height, and, looking up, saw a human thrown from the balcony which ringed the hall, some thirty feet above the dirt floor, some ten feet below the roof beams. I saw then that Kurii held the balcony.
I did not think they would long delay finishing us. The smoke was thick in the hall. Men choked. Men coughed. I saw, too, the nostrils of the Kurii closing to narrow slits. Sparks fell in their fur.
I brushed as;de one of the hanging vessels of bronze, a tharlarion-oil lamp which, on its chain, hung from the ceiling, some forty feet above. It is such that it can be raised ancl lowered by a side chain.
“Spears!” cried Ivar. “We need spears!”
But there were few spears in the fear-maddened, terrified crowd of men cringing back from the beasts. What spears there were could not be thrown because of the press.
To one side I saw the Kur with the golden band on its arm. At the side of its mouth were saliva and blood, the furmatted.
It looked at me. I knew then it was my enemy. We had found one another.
An ax struck toward me. It had been wielded by the Kur whose lips had drawn back. I darted to one side, the ax buried itself in the dirt, I found myself within the beast’s guard, I thrust the blade, to its hilt, into the chest of the beast. It gave a puzzled snarl which I heard, jerking the blade free, only as I leaped back. The other Kurii looked at it, puzzled; then it fell into the dirt.
There was silence, save for the crackling of flames.
The horror of what I had done then was understood by the leader of the Kurii.
A Kur has been killed.
“Attack!” cried Ivar Forkbeard. “Attack! Are you docile tarsk that you dare not attack? Men of Torvaldsland, attack!”
But no man moved.
Mere humans, they dared not set themselves agamst KurlL They would rather, helpless, await their slaughter.
They could not move, so struck with terror they were.
The body of the dead Kur, inert, lay heavy, crooked, in the dirt. The bloodied ax was to one side. The shield arm was twisted in one of the straps. The other strap was broken.
The eyes of the leader of the Kurii, whom I knew to be my enemy, blazed upon me. His horror, seeing his fallen brother of the killing blood, had now become rage, outrage.I, one of the herd, of the cattle, had dared to strike one of the master species, a superior form of life. A Kur had been killed.
I set myself.
Again in the hall of Svein Blue Tooth rang the blood shriek of the Kurii. On each side of the leader, plunging toward us, howling, swept Kurii. Too, they pressed in
