Kurii lifted their heads, apprehensive. They heard I bellowing, before it came to the ears of men.

The earth began to tremble.

Dust, like smoke, like the earth was burning, rolled in the air.

They looked to one another.

Then the air was filled with the thunder of hoofs, bellowing of the bosk. The bosk, in their charging hundreds, heads down, hooves pounding, maddened, relentless, driven, struck the square.We heard, even from behind the herd, Ivar, and I, and ahundred men, screaming and shouting, the howling, the startled shrieks of Kurii, the enraged roars of Kurii. We heardthe scraping of horns on metal, the screams of gored Kurii;the howls of Kurii fallen beneath the hoofs. Nothing onGor withstands the charge of the maddened bosk. Larls themselves will flee before it. The herd thrust through the square and, half milling, half still running, emerged from its other side, making for the slopes of the valley. Dazed, injured Kurii, their formations disrupted, reeled, only to find, among them, screaming men, the launched horde of Svein Blue Tooth. His charge was unleashed while the last of the bosk were still striking the western edge of the square, and other animals were streaming, bellowing, goring, through it. Screaming men, axes raised, emerged from the dust, running, falling upon the devastated Kurii. Not an instant had they been given to regroup themselves. Kurii, howling, fled, knots of men following individuals.

“Press them! Press them!” screamed the Blue Tooth. “No quarter. No quarter!”

Once again the camp became a melee of small combats, only now the Kurii, where they could, fled. If they fled north, they were permitted to do so, for north lay the “bridge of jewels.” Since morning this “bridge” had lain in wait, more than four hundred archers surmounting the pass. That there is an apparent avenue of escape serves to make the enemy think in terms of escape; a cornered foe, desperate, is doubly dangerous; a foe who thinks he may, by swift decision, save himself, is less likely to fight with ferocity; he is quicker to abandon his lines, quicker to give up the combat.

Ivar and I strode through the burning camp, axes in our hand. Men followed us.

Where we came on them we killed Kurii.

We passed the poles of the vast pen. Within it, looking through the bars, not daring to leave it, were hundreds of bond-maids. We saw Pouting Lips within. Behind her was Leah, the Canadian girl. Ivar blew Pouting Lips a kiss, in the Gorean fashion, brushing the kiss with his fingertips toward her. She extended her hands through the poles but we turned away, leaving her, and the Canadian girl, behind them.

We saw a sleen herding a girl back to the pen. She was turning about, crying, scolding it, but it, snarling, relentless,snapped at her, cutting at her heels with its fangs. She: before it, weeping, running to the pen.

Ivar and I laughed. “They are useful beasts in herdingwomen,” he observed.

“My Jarl,” said a voice. We turned about. Hilda knelt beforeIvar Forkbeard, her hair to his feet. “May I not follow my Jarl?” she begged. “A lowly bond-maid begs to heel her Jarl.”

“Then, heel,” said Ivar, good-naturedly, turning away.

“Thank you, my Jarl!” she wept, leaping to her feet, falling into step on his left, two steps behind him.

We heard, behind a tent, the snarl of a Kur. Ivar and I swiftly, circled the tent.

It was a large Kur, brownish, with blazing eyes, rings its ears. In its right hand it dragged a human female. It was Thyri. Ivar motioned me back. Blocking the path of the Kur was a man, in a kirtle of white wool, a collar of black iron at his throat. He held his ax lifted. The Kur snarled, but the man, Tarsk, Thrall of the Forkbeard, once Wulfstan of Kassau, did not move. More than once today had I seen the fellow Tarsk at work in the fighting. In the lines of Svein Blue Tooth, once he had fought not more than six men from my right. His ax, and his kirtle, were much bloodied.Many times had his ax in the ferocities of combat drunk the blood of Kurii.

The Kur threw the girl to one side. In her collar she f whimpering, her eyes filled with terror.

The Kur cast about and suddenly darted its great handdown and clutched an ax, a Kur ax.

Wulfstan did not strike. He waited. The lips of the Kur drew back. He now had the ax firmly in his two heavy fists.He snarled.

Thyri lay on her side, the palms of her hands on the ground, her right leg under her. She watched the two beasts contesting her, the Kur and the human beast, terrible with the bloodied ax, Wulfstan of Kassau. The fight was swift andsharp. Ivar was pleased. “You did well,” he told the youngman. “You did well earlier today, and now. You are free.

At his feet lay the bloodied Kur. He stood over it, a free man. “Wulfstan,” cried Thyri. She sprang to her feet and ran to him, burying her head, weeping, in her hair against his chest. “I love you,” she wept. “I love you!”

“The wench is yours,” laughed Ivar Forkbeard.

“I love you,” wept Thyri.

“Kneel,” said Wulfstan.

Startled, Thyri did so. “You are mine now,” said Wulfstan.

“But surely you will free me, Wulfstan!” she cried.

Wulfstan lifted his head and uttered a long, shrill whistle, of the sort with which Kurii summon herd sleen. One of the animals must have been within a hundred yards for it came immediately. Wulfstan lifted Thyri by one arm and threw her before the beast. “Take her to the pen,” said Wulfstan to the animal. “Wulfstan!” cried Thyri. Then the beast, snarling, half-charged her, stopping short, hissing, eyes blazing. “Wulfstan!” cried Thyri, backing away from the beast, shaking her head. “No, Wulfstan!” “IfI still wish you later,” he said, “I will retrieve you from the pen, with others which I might claim as my share of the booty.” “Wulfstan!” she cried, protesting. The sleen snapped at her, and, weeping, she turned and fled to the pen, the beast hissing and biting at her, driving her before it.

The three of us laughed. Ivar and I had little doubt that Wulfstan, upon reflection, would indeed retrieve his pretty Thyri, vital and slim, from the pen, and, indeed, perhaps others as well. Once the proud young lady of Kassau had spurned his suit, regarding herself as being too good for him. Now he would see that she served him completely, deliciously, helplessly, as a bond-maid, an article of his property, his to do with as he wished, and perhaps serve him as only one of several such lowly wenches. We laughed. Thyri would wear her collar well for a master such as Wulfstan, once of Kassau, now of Torvaldsland. We looked after her. We saw her, furious, running helplessly for the pen, the sleen at her heels.

Ivar Forkbeard, followed by Tarl Red Hair and Wulfstan of Torvaldsland, heeled by the bond-maid, Hilda, picked his way toward the burned, looted tents of Thorgard of Scagnar.In the valley there burned, still, a thousand fires. Here andthere, mounted on stakes, were the heads of Kurii. W stepped over broken axes, shattered poles, torn leather, from the lodges of the Kurii. We passed a dozen men emptying kegsof ale. It had become cloudy. We heard a ship’s songfrom two hundred yards to our right. We passed a group of men who had captured a Kur. A heavy block of wood had been thrust into its jaws and, with leather, bound there.It was bleeding at the left side of its face. Its paws had beentied together at its belly and its legs tied in leather ankleshackles. They were beating it back and forth between themwith the butts of spears. “Down! Roll over!” commanded one of the men. It was beaten to its knees and then belly. Prodded by spears it rolled over. A girl fled past us, a sleen,brown and black, padding at her heels. I slipped once. Thedirt, in many places, was soft, from the blood. We pickedour way among bodies, mostly those of Kurii, for the sur prise, the fury, had been ours. We passed five men, about fire, roasting a haunch of Kur. The smell was heavy, andsweet, like blood. In the distance, visible, was the height the Torvaldsberg. I saw Hrolf, from the East, the bearded giant who had joined our forces, asking only to fight withus, leaning on his spear, soberly, surveying the field. In a other place we saw a framework of poles set on the field. From the crossbar, hung by their ankles, were the bodies five Kurii. Two were being dressed for the spit; two, as yet had been untouched; blood was being drained into a helm from the neck of the fifth.