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forces. In the morning, we will be hunted."
"It is quite possible,". said Ivar, looking at me, "that we are being hunted
now, by those from the hall."
"Our scent is known," I said. "Yellow scarves will not protect us from those
from the hall."
"What do you propose?" asked Ivar.
"We must flee," I told him.
"No," said Ivar. "We must go to the Torvaldsberg."
"I do not understand," I said.
"It is time," he said. He looked about himself, at the ruins of his camp. In
the distance we could see buring tents. Too, in the distance, there was a
great redness in the sky. Beneath this redness blirned the hall of Svein Blue
Tooth. Far off, we could hear the howls of Kurii. "It is time,"
said Ivar Forkbeard, turning away from me, "to go to the Torvaldsberg."
He strode from his camp. I followed him.
It was shortly past noon, on the snowy slopes of the Torvaldsberg.
I looked down into the valley. We could not make out clearly the lineaments of
the Kurii pursuing us. They moved rapidly.
They were perhaps a pasang and a halfaway. They carried shlelds, axes.
"Let us continue our journey," said Ivar.
"Shall we meet them here?" I asked
';No," said Ivar, "let us continue our journey "
I looked up at the looming crags of the Torvaidsberg. "It is madness to
attempt to climb," I
said. "We do not have ropes, equipment. Neither of us are of the mountain
people
I looked back. The Kurii were now a pasang away, on the rocky, lower slopes,
scrambling upward.
They had slung thelr shields and axes on their backs. When they came to a
sheet of steep ice they did not go around it but, extending thelr claws,
climbed it rapidly. The Forkbeard and I had lost several Ehn in circling such
obstacles. In snow the Kurii, spreading their large, six-digited appendages,
dropped to all fours. For their weight, they did not sink deeply. It had taken
the
Forkbeard and me an Ahn, wading through crusts of snow, to reach our present
position. Kurii, it was evident, would accomplish the same distance in a much
shorter time.
When snow gave way to patches of rock they would pause, momentarily, nostrils
lowered, reading signs that would have been undetectable to a human. Then they
would lift their heads, scan the rocks above them, and proceed swiftly.
Ivar Forkbeard stood up. There was no cover now for us between our present
position and the
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Below us we heard Kurii, seeing him, howl with pleasure. One pointed us out
to a fourth who had not yet seen us. Then all of them stood below, leaping,
lifting their arms.
"They are pleased," I said.
The Kurii then. with redoubled speed, began to move toward us.
"Let us continue our journey," suggested the Forkbeard.
My foot slipped, and I hung by the hands, from the rocky ledge. Then I had my
footing again.
The sun struck the cliff. My fingers ached. My feet were cold from the ice,
the snow. But the upper part of my body sweated.
"Move only one hand or a foot at a time," said Ivar.
It was now the twelfth hour, two Ahn past the Gorean noon. I would not look
down.
A rock struck near me, shattering into the granite of the mountain, scarring
it. It must have been the size of a tarsk. Startled I almost lost my grip. I
tried to remain calm. I heard a Kur climbing below me.
The Torvaldsberg is, all things considered, an extremely dangerous mountain.
Yet it is clearly not unscalable, as I learned, without equipment. It has the
shape of a spear blade, broad, which has been bent near the tip. It is
something over four and a half pasangs in height, or something over seventeen
thousand Earth feet. It is not the highest mountain on Gor but it is one of
the most dramatic, and most impressive. It is also, in its fearful way,
beautiful.
I followed, as closely as I could, the Forkbeard. It did not take me long to
understand that he knew well what he was dolng. He seemed to have an uncanny
sense for locating tiny ledges and cuts in the stone which were almost
invisible from even two or three feet below.
Kurii are excellent climbers, well fitted for this activity with their
multiple jointed hands and feet, their long fingers, thelr suddenly extendable
claws, but they followed us, nonetheless, with difficulty.
I suspected why this was.
It must have been about the fourteenth Ahn when Ivar reached down and helped
me to a ledge.
I was breathing heavily.
"Kurii," he said, "cannot reach this ledge by the same route. '
"Why?" I asked.
"The hand holds," said he, "are too shallow, their weight
"Hand holds?" I asked.
"Yes," said he. "Surely you have noticed their convemence.''
I looked at him. More than once I had almost slipped down the escarpment.
"And you have noticed how they have become shallower?"
"I noticed the climbing was more difficult " I admitted. "You seem to know the
mountain well," I
told him.
Ivar smiled.
It had been no accident that he had seemed to have an uncanny knack for
locating an ascent path, where none seemed to promise.
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