Below us I heard a snarl of frustration.

“As a boy, thus,” said Ivar, “I slew my first Kur.” He rose to his feet. He went to a corner of the ledge where, heaped, there were several large stones. “The stones I then gathered are still here,” he said. “I found several on the ledge, some I found higher.”

I did not envy the Kur below.

I looked over the edge. “It is still climbing,” I whispered. I drew my sword. It would not be difficult to prevent the animal from reaching the ledge by any direct route.

“It is stupid,” said the Forkbeard.

Behind the first Kur, some feet below, was a second. Two others were far down the slope, where it was less sheer. The two closest to us had left their weapons below, with the others.

The first Kur was some eight or ten feet below us when, suddenly, it slipped on the rock and, with a wild shriek, scratching at the stone, slid some four feet downward and then plunged backward, turning in the air, howling, and, some five Ihn later, struck the rocks far below.

“The hand holds,” said Ivar, “were not cut to be deep enough to support the weight of a Kur.”

The second Kur was some twenty-five feet below. It looked up, snarling.

The rock hurled by Ivar struck it from the almost vertical wall of stone.

It, like its confrere, fell to the rocks below.

The trap, laid for an enemy by a boy of Torvaldsland many years ago, was still effective. I admired Ivar Forkbeard. Even in his youth he had been resourceful, cunning. Even as a boy he had been a dangerous foe, in guile and wit the match even for an adult Kur.

The other two Kurii crouched below on the slopes, looking up. They carried their shields, their axes, on their back.

They made no attempt to approach us.

Our position was not, now, a desirable one. We were isolated on a ledge. Here there was not food nor water. We could, with some climbing, obtain ice or snow, but there was no food. In time we would weaken, be unable to climb well. As hunters Kurii were patient beasts. If these had fed well before taking up our pursuit, they would not need food for days. I had little doubt they had fed well. There had been much available meat. There was little possibility of leaving the ledge undetected. Kurii have superb night vision. Furthermore, it would be extremely dangerous to attempt to move on the Torvaldsberg in the night; it was extremely dangerous even in full daylight.

I rubbed my hands together, and blew on them. My feet too, were cold. The sweat in my shirt, now that Iwas not climbing, was frozen. The shirt was stiff, cold. In the night on the Torvaldsberg, even in the middle of the summer, without warm garments, a man might freeze. The wind then began to rise, sweeping the ledge. From where we stood we could see the black ruins of Svein Blue Tooth’s hall and holdings, the desolated thing fields, the sea, Thassa, with the ships at the beach.

I looked at the Forkbeard.

“Let us continue our journey,” he said.

“Let us descend and meet the Kurii, while we still have strength,” I said.

“Let us continue our journey,” he said.

Moving carefully, he began to climb. I followed him. After perhaps half an Ahn, I looked back. The two Kurii, by a parallel route, were following.

That night on the Torvaldsberg we did not freeze.

We huddled on a ledge, between rocks, sheltered from the wind, shivering with cold, miserable, listening for Kurii.

But they did not approach.

We had chosen our ledge well.

Twice rocks rained down to the ledge, but we were protected by an overhang.

“Would you like to hear me sing?” asked Ivar.

“Yes,” I said, “it might drive the Kurii away.”

Undeterred by my sarcasm, brilliant though it was, Ivar broke into song. He knew, it seemed, a great many songs.

No more rocks rained down to the ledge.

“Song, you see,” said Ivar, “soothes even Kurii.”

“More likely,” I said, “they have withdrawn from earshot.”

“You jest delightfully,” acknowledged the Forkbeard, “I had not thought it in you.

“Yes,” I admitted.

“I will teach you a song,” he said, “and we shall sing lt together.” The song dealt with the problems of a man attempting to content one hundred bond-maids, one after the other, it is rather repetitious, and the number of bondmaids decreases by one in each round. Needless to say, it is a song which is not swiftly dispatched. I have, incidentally, a very fine singing voice.

In singing, we little noticed the cold. Yet, toward dawn, we took turns napping. “We will need our strength,” said the Forkbeard.

How marvelous in the morning seemed the sun.

“If the Kurii are above us,” I said, recalling the rain of stones, “is this not out opportunity to descend?”

“Kurii corner their pray,” said the Forkbeard. “In the light, they will be below us. They will wish to keep between us and escape. Further, we would have little opportunity to escape, even if they were above us. The descent is difficult.” I recalled the two Kurii, precariously clinging to the wall of rock, one of which had fallen attempting to reach us, the other of which Ivar had struck from the wall with a heavy stone. I shuddered.

“There they are,” said Ivar, looking over the brink. He waved to them. Then he turned, cheerily, to me. “Let us continue our journey,” he said.

“You speak,” I said, “as though you had some objective.”

“I do,” said the Forkbeard.

Again we began climbing. Not long after we had again taken to the rocks, we heard and saw the Kurii, some two hundred feet below and to one side, following us.

It was shortly after the tenth hour, the Gorean noon, that we reached the peak of the Torvaldsberg.

Although there is much snow on the heights of the Torvaldsberg, there were also, on the peak, many areas of bare rock, swept by the wind which, on the peak, seems almost constant. I crossed a patch of snow, ankle deep, crusted, to ascend a snow-free, rounded rock.

I cannot express the beauty of the view from the Torvaldsberg. I have climbed it, I thought. And I am here.

There had been danger, there had been the struggle, the challenge, and then, here, suddenly, torturously purchased, humbling me, exalting me, was a victory which I felt was not mine so much as that of a world, that of vision, that of beauty. I had not conquered a mountain; the mountain when I had paid its price, that I might understand the value of the gift, had lifted me to where I might see how insignificant I was and how beautiful and precious was reality and life, and the sun on a bleak, cold land. Ivar stood beside me, not speaking.

“You were here once,” I said, “as a boy.”

“Yes,” said Ivar. “I have never forgotten it.”

“Did you come here to die?” I asked.

“No,” he said. “But I have been unable to find it.”

I looked at him, puzzled.

“I could not find it before,”he said. “I cannot find it now.” “What?” I asked.

“It does not matter now,”he said.

He turned about.

Approaching were the two Kurii. We watched them. They, too, interestingly, stopped. They stood together, in the snow, looking out, over the world.

Then they regarded us. We loosened our weapons. The Kurii unslung their shields, their axes. We drew our swords. The Kurii fixed on their left arms the heavy, rounded iron shields, took the great axes, seven feet in length, grasped some two feet from the bottom of the handle, in their massive right fists. I had never thought much of it before, but Kurii, like men, were dominantly right handed. I conjectured then, that like men, the left hemisphere of their brains were dominant.

Ivar and I leaped from the rock; the two Kurii, one to each of us, approached. Their ears were laid back; they we-re cautious; they leaned slightly forward, shambling, crouching.

Priest-Kings, I recalled, regarded Kurii and men as rather equivalent species, similar products of similar processes of evolution, similar products of similarly cruel selections, though on worlds remote from one another.