The Gorean World

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 their  weapons, 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 recogni-t: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, be-tween 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, out-lined 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, en-tered 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 her  struggling, 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, ter-rified, 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 dif-ficulty, 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 ef-ficacy against the great metal shields, the sweeping axes of the Kurii. They could cut a man down before he could ap-proach 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
1 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 stand-ing 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, ter-rified 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 fur  matted.
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, at-tack!"
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.
Marauders of Gor pages 205-209

“Suddenly, from the midst of those bodies, howling, the Kur, spears in its body, thrust upward clawing and raging like some force of nature.  It stood knee deep in bodies.
“Kill it!” screamed the officer.  Again men charged, with spears and swords.  In the bloody tumult men struck even one another.  I saw it reach out and tear a man from his fellows, disposing of him, half decapitating him with a slash of fangs to the throat, and seize another, tearing his head from his body.  Then it went down, bloody and terrible, again, beneath the weigh of iron, and men.  That was the thing, I recalled, which had been cast out of its own world for its alleged weakness.  “It is moving again!” screamed a man.
Once more I saw it rise up among bodies.  I heard men weep, and continue to strike at it.  How it prided itself on its refinements, on its sense of gentility.  How vain it had been!  How irritated I had even been with it, with its confounded supercilious arrogance.  How jealous it was of being a gentleman.  It went down again.  “We can’t kill it!” screamed a man.  “We can’t kill it!” It even cooked its meat.  Once more it thrust its way up through bodies, now waist-deep about it.  An arm hung from its jaws.  Spears and swords struck at it, again and again.  “They will learn,” it had said, “that even a gentleman knows how to fight.”  Twice more it tore its way up among bodies, and then, at last, men stepped wearily back from it.  Bodies were pulled away.  It lay alone on the sand, dead.  I could not even pronounce its name.”
Players of Gor pages 365-366

I saw a Kur seize a man of  Thorgard of Scagnar’s camp and tear his head from his body.
The attackers, as well as the men of Thorgard of Scagnar, wore yellow scarves at their shoulders. Many Kurii, confused in the beginning, had fallen to the axes of scarved men, putatively their allies. Now, however, indiscriminately, they sought to destroy all armed male humans. Many were the men of Thorgard who fell beneath the teeth and steel of Kurii, and several were the Kurii who fell to the weapons of Thorgard’s men, as they fought madly to defend them-selves.
Once I saw Thorgard of Scagnar and Ivar Forkbeard try-ing to reach him. But Ivar was blocked by Kurii and war-riors, and joined in their combat.
I heard the screaming of slave girls.
I saw two Kurii converging on Gorm.Twice , from be-hind, the ax swept laterally, once to the left, the second time to the right, chopping through the spines.
A sleen, more than eleven feet in length, six-legged, slid past, its fur wiping against my thigh.
Gorm, in his madness, was cutting at the bodies of the  Kurii fallen now before him, shrieking.
Shoulder to shoulder, fighting, I saw Bjarni of Thorstein Camp and the young man, whom I had championed on the dueling ground in the thing.  I smelled fire. There was the howling of Kurii.
I saw a Kur, barred with brown, turning, backing away, snarling, limping, from Ottar, who kept the Forkbeard’s farm. Ottar pursued it, heedless of his safety, his eyes wild, killing it, cutting its body then in two with repeated blows of his ax.
I saw the huge, little-known man of Torvaldsland, who had joined the host late, calling himself Hrolf, from the East, who had come from the direction of the Torvaldsberg. With a cry he thrust his spear through the chest of a Kur.
He fought magnificently.
A Kur charged. I side-stepped, catching it in the belly with the ax.
I saw another Kur, undecided, startled. I slipped in gut. It charged. I reared the handle of the ax, catching it in the stomach, turning it to one side. It grunted. I leapt up, catch-ing it in the side of the neck before it could rise. Its head half to one side it rose to its feet and ran for a dozen yards before it slipped, falling sideways, rolling into the fur and burning leather of one of their lodges.
"Protect  me!" I heard. A female threw herself to my feet, putting her head to my ankle. "Protect me!" she wept. I looked down. She lifted her face, terrified, tear-stained. She had dark hair, dark eyes. I saw the iron collar, dark, on her white throat. It was Leah, the Canadian girl. With  my foot I thrust her, weeping, to one side. There was men’s work to do.
I met the attack of the Kur squarely. The handle of its ax smote down across the handle of mine, forcing me to one knee. Slowly I reared up, forcing the handle, now held in the two paws of the Kur, upward and backward. It again thrust down, with its full weight and strength, certain that it could crush the puny strength of a human. I held it only long enough to satisfy  myself that I could, then I withdrew the handle swiftly, twisting to one side and lifting the ax. It fell forward, startled. I stepped on the handle of the ax. It tried to dislodge it. My ax was raised. It roIled wildly to one side. My blow fell against its left shoulder blade, dividing it. Howling, it leapt to its feet, backing away from me, baring its fangs. I followed it. It turned suddenly and leapt away. I caught it before the opening of a pavilion tent, one of those of Thorgard of Scagnar, perhaps his own. The tent was striped. The Kur, turning, now facing me, moved backward; it stumbled against a tent rope, jerking loose its peg. I leaped forward, striking it again, at the left hip. The side of its furred leg was drenched with blood. Hunched over, snarling, it backed into the tent, where I followed it. There was screaming from within the tent, the screaming of Thorgard’s silken girls, many of them short, plump, lusciously bodied. Some were chained by the left ankle. The silks they wore, clinging and diaphanous, were designed not to conceal their beauty but to reveal it, to enhance and accentuate it, to expose it sensuously to the survey of a master. They, col-lared, shrank back, cowering on the cushions, drawing back to the side of the tent. I scarcely glanced at them. They would belong to the victors.
The Kur, backing away, with its right arm, reaching across its body, tore up one of the tent poles, wrenching it free of the earth, the tent. The tent sagged near him. He snarled. He thrust out with the tent pole, using the spike at its top like a spear. Then he swung the pole, striking at me. I waited. It was weak from the loss of blood. It turned about again and fled to the opposite wall of the tent. It tried to tear the siIk, and it was at the wall of the tent that I caught it. I lifted my ax from the body, and turned to face the women. I strode to them. They knelt, huddled together, holding one another, at the side of the tent. They put down their eyes, trembling. I left the tent.
"Where is Thorgard of Scagnar?" asked Ivar Forkbeard. His shirt was half torn away. There was Kur blood on his chest and against the side of his face.
"I do not know," I told him.
Behind Ivar Forkbeard, naked, wearing his collar, I saw Hilda, Thorgard’s daughter.
"There is a rallying of Kurii by the verr pens!" cried a man.
Quickly Ivar and myself hurried to the verr pens.
The rally was ill fated. Spears fell among the determined Kurii. Several fell in the mud and filth of the verr pens themselves, the bleating animals, frightened, darting about, leaping over the bodies.
Near the verr pens we found chained male slaves, picked up by Kurii on foraging expeditions, and used as porters. There were more than three hundred such wretches.
Svein Blue Tooth was at the pens, leading the attack that had broken the rally. The rally had been led by the Kur who had been foremost in the attack on his hall. This Kur, it seemed, had disappeared, scattering with the others. The Blue Tooth stepped over the body of a fallen Kur. He gestured to the chained male slaves. "Free them," he said, "and give them weapons. There is yet work to do." Eagerly  the slaves, when their  manacles had been struck away, picked up weapons and sought Kurii.
"Do not permit Kurii to escape to the south," said Svein Blue Tooth to Ketil, keeper of his high farm, who had been famed as a wrestler.
"The bosk herd blocks their escape in numbers," said Ketil. "Some have even been trampled."
"We have been tricked!" cried a man. "Across the camp is the true rally, hundreds of Kurii! All falls before them! This was a ruse to draw men here, permitting Kurii to regroup in numbers elsewhere!"
My heart leaped.
No wonder the commander of the Kurii had left his forces here, disappearing. I wondered if they knew his real intent had been elsewhere. I admired him. He was a true general, a most dangerous and lethal foe, unscrupulous, brilliant.
"It seems," grinned Ivar Forkbeard, "we have a worthy adversary."
"The battle turns against us!" cried a man.
"They must be held!" said Ivar Forkbeard. We heard the howling of Kurii, from almost a pasang away, on the other side of the camp. Drifting to us, too, were the cries of men. "Let us join the fray, Tarl Red Hair," invited the Forkbeard.
Fleeing men rushed past us. The Forkbeard struck one, felling him.
"To the battle," said he. The man turned, and, taking his weapon, fled back to the fighting. "To the battle!" cried the Forkbeard. "To the battle!"
"They cannot be held!" cried a man. "They will sweep the camp!"
"To the battle!" cried the Forkbeard.
We ran madly toward the fighting.
There, already lifted, we saw the signal spear of Svein Blue Tooth. About it swept Kurii. It was like a flag on an island. At its foot stood the mighty Rollo, striking to the left and right with his ax. No Kur who approached the signal spear did not die. Hundreds of men, in ragged, scattered lines, strung out laterally, accompanied us. Kwrii, overex-tended, meeting this new resistance, to piercing howls, fell back, to regroup for another charge.
"Form lines!" cried Svein Blue Tooth. "Form lines!" The Blue Tooth, their Jarl, was with them! Men fought to take their place, under his eyes, in the first line.
The Blue Tooth himself now stood with Rollo, his own hand on the signal spear.
We saw the overlapping shields of the Kurii line, the axes. There must have been better than two thousand Kurii formed.
Then, to our surprise, from within the Kurii lines we saw two or three hundred slave girls whipped forth. They were bound together in fours and fives. Some were bound together by the wrists, others by the ankles, some by the waist, many by the throat. They were cattle, caught and tethered in the camp, in the confusion, by Kurii. They were to be used to break our lines. I saw Ael~gifu, Pudding, among them. Her wrists were pulled out from the side of her body, bound to the wrist of a girl on either side, as they themselves were fastened. We heard the cracking of whips, and the cries of pain. Faster and faster ran the girls toward us, fleeing the whips. Behind them, rapidly, the Kurii advanced.
"Charge!" cried the Svein Blue Tooth. The lines of men, too, hurtled forward.
Not ten yards before the clash took place, Svein Blue Tooth and his lieutenants before the running line, as the girls, under the whips of Kurii, fled, terrified, seeing the axes, the leveled weapons, toward them, made a sign no bond-maid of the north mistakes, the belly sign. Almost as one the girls, crying out, flung themselves to their bellies among the bodies and the charge of the men of Torvalds-land, missing not a step, took its way over them, striking the startled Kurii with an unimpeded impact. I cut down one of the Kurii with its whip. "When the whip is put to the back of slaves," I told it, "it is we who shall do so." There was, instantly, fierce fighting, in and among, and over, the bodies of the tethered bond-maids. Those who could covered their heads with their hands. Bodies, human and Kur, fell bloodied to the grass. Bond-maids, half crushed, some with broken bones, screamed. They struggled, some to rise, but, tethered, few could do so. Most lay prone, trembling, as the feet shifted about them, weapons clashing over their heads. The Kurii, some seventeen or eighteen hundred of them, fell back.
"Cut the wenches free," ordered Svein Blue Tooth. Blades swiftly freed the prone, hysterical bond-maids. Many were covered with blood. Svein Blue Tooth, and others, by the hair, hurled bond-wenches to their feet. "Get to the pen!" he cried. They stumbled away, hurrying to the pen. "Help her!" ordered the Blue Tooth to two frightened girls. They bent to lift and support one of their sisters in bondage, whose leg was broken, binding fiber still knotted about the ankle. "Tarl Red Hair!" wept Gunnhild. My blade flashed at her throat, cutting the tether that bound her, on either side, to two other girls. "Get to the pen," I told her. "Yes, my Jarl!" she cried, running toward the pen. The girls, those who could, fled the field, to return to the pen in which the Kurii had originally confined them. Those who could not walk were, under the orders of-men, by other bond-maids, carried or aided to the pen. I saw Pretty Ankles put out her hand to Ivar Forkbeard. Severed binding fiber was knotted tight about her belly. "To the pen," commanded the Forkbeard. Weeping, she hurried to the pen.
"They charge!" cried a man.
With a great howling, again Kurll ran toward us. Our lines buckled but, again, after  minutes of terrible fighting, they fell back.
On one side of me fought the mighty Rollo, his lips foam-ing, his eyes wild, on the other side he who called himself Hrolf, from the East, the bearded giant with bloodied spear. Well did he acquit himself. Then others stood with me. Rollo went to the signal spear. He who spoke of himself as Hrolf disappeared.
Twice more were there charges, once by Kurii, once by men. We were thrown back from the shield wall with devas-tating losses. Had it not been for the force of Svein Blue Tooth, the power of his voice, the mightiness of his pres-ence, Kurii might then have taken the initiative. "Form lines!" he cried. "Regroup! Spears to the second line!" A hedge of spears, projecting from the lines of men, men with axes between them, waited for Kurii, should they try to press their advantage.
Then the spear line faced the shield wall. A hundred yards of bloodied grass, of bodies, of men and Kurii, separated two species of warring animal.
Kurii from within the camp, where they could, streamed to join their comrades. Men, too, where they could break away from small battles, individual combats, found their way to our lines.
It seemed startling to me that we had stood against Kurii, but we had.
The Kurii showed no signs of emerging from the shield wall. It consists of two lines, one on the ground, the other at chest level, of overlapping shields. The shields turn only for the blows of axes. We could see the two front lines, one kneeling, one standing, of Kurii. Similar lines, fierce, obdu-rate, protective, extended about the formation, on all sides, forming the edges of the Kurii war square. Within the square, formed into ragged "Hands," "Kurii," and "Bands," with their appropriate leaders, were massed a considerable number of Kurii, ready to charge forth should the shield wall open, or to support it if it seemed in danger of weakening. It was my supposition that their square contained, now, better than twenty-three hundred beasts.
"Let us again attack the square!" cried a man.
"No," said Svein Blue Tooth. "We cannot break the square."
"They will wait for night," said Ivar Forkbeard.
Men shuddered. The Kur has excellent night vision. Men would, for practical purposes, be blind.
"They will slaughter us with the fall of night," said a man.
"Let us withdraw now," said another.
"Do you not think they will hunt us in the darkness?" asked Svein Blue Tooth. He looked up. "It is past noon," he said. Then he said, "I am hungry." He looked to some of his men. "Go to Kurii fallen. Cut meat. Roast it before our lines."
"Good," said Ivar Forkbeard. "Perhaps they will break the square for us."
But the square did not break. Not a beast moved. Svein Blue Tooth threw Kur meat into the dirt, in disgust.
"Your plan has failed," said Ivar Forkbeard.
"Yes," said Svein Blue Tooth grimly, "they are waiting for night."
I saw the general within their square, the huge Kur whom I had seen before, in the hall of Svein Blue Tooth, it with the golden ring on the left arm. The ring of gold, as far as I knew, had no military significance. Many Kurii wear such rings, and necklaces and earrings. That no ring of reddish alloy was worn, which would distinguish the leader of a Band or March was of interest. The leader of a Band wears two welded, reddish rings, the leader of the March, which contains twelve Bands, only one. The general in the form tion against which we stood wore not even one reddish rin Surely he was not a "Blood" of a "People." Yet there w little doubt of his authority, or his right to such authority expected he stood as a commander from one of the stc-worlds themselves, sent to unite and command native Kur
"Sometimes," said I. "Kurii react to blood, reflexively.’
"They have had their fill of blood," said Ivar Forkbeard.  "The air is heavy with it." Even I could smell blood, mixing with the smoke of fires, where Kurii lodges burned.
But the Kurii square held. It did not move.
"They are patient," said Svein Blue Tooth. "They wait for night."
At the same time Ivar Forkbeard and myself looked one another. I smiled. He grinned.
"We shall break the square," I told Svein Blue Tooth,  "We shall do so in one Ahn. Find what food and water you can. Feed the men. Give them drink. Be ready."
He looked at us, as though we might be mad. "I shall," he said, fingering the stained tooth of the Hunjer whale whi ch hung about his neck.
Kurii lifted their heads, apprehensive. They heard 1 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 a  hundred men, screaming and shouting, the howling, the startled shrieks of Kurii, the enraged roars of Kurii. We heard  the scraping of horns on metal, the screams of gored Kurii;  the howls of Kurii fallen beneath the hoofs. Nothing on  Gor 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, run-ning, 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 fero-city; 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.
Marauders of Gor pages 250-257

I looped the noose where the wire was naked. As the Kur climbed near me, his back to me I caught its great shaggy bead in the loop and drew it tight. It tore at the fine wire with its thick digits but they could not slip beneath it. I flung myself backward off the beam and the wire pulled the Kur from the side of the ship until it hung, struggling, I hanging a few feet below it. It flung out its paws but could grasp on nothing. It tried to hold the wire, and climb on it, or relieve the pressure on its throat, but its great paws slipped on the slender strand; then its weight began to pull me upward; I, hands knotted in the insulated portion of the wire, kicked the Kur back as it reached for me; then I was above it, being drawn by its weight to the height of the beam; the shoulders
of the Kur were mantled in red; blood ran heavily from its throat, in throbbing, gigantic glots; I braced, myself, head down, feet pressed up against the beam, to hold the Kur in place; then, without warning, the wire parted; when the wire parted I was almost horizontal to the beam, trying to keep from being pulled over it, trying to hold the Kur; the force of my legs, relieved suddenly of the counter tension of the Kur's weight, flung me back, almost to the other side of the ship, and I slid down a few feet and caught some piping. The Kur, striking four times, fell some sixty or seventy feet, to the lowest level of the ship, past the door, well below the level of the sand outside.
I looked to the dials. The fifth sweep, on the fifth dial, was almost vertical.
Outside I knew it was night. The storm still raged.
There was heavy glass over the faces of the dials. I climbed to the beam from whence I had snared the Kur. I could not reach the dials.
I cast about wildly. I could not stop them.
Below me, to my horror, I saw the Kur, a mass of blood, struggle to its feet. It was still bleeding, heavily, from the throat. I had little doubt that the great vessel of its throat had been opened, if not severed.
The beast seemed indomitable. Its strength was almost inconceivable.
It climbed slowly. I saw its uplifted face, its terrible eyes, the fangs, the ears laid back against its head. Hand over hand, not swiftly now, not easily, but foot by torturous foot, it climbed.
I seized a narrow pipe over my head, jerking at it. It contained wire. In a frenzy I tried to free it of the side of the ship. I could not loosen it.
The beast was nearer now, and still climbing. I saw its eyes. It moved another six inches toward me.
I tore loose the pipe. The sweep on the fifth dial, suddenly, stopped. The sweep on the sixth dial began to move toward the vertical, swiftly, counterclockwise. I did not think its journey would take more than a few seconds. I struck at the sixth dial with the pipe, again and again, shattering the glass. I saw the Kur not a foot below me. It tried to lift its hand, to seize me. Blood no longer ran from its throat. It was dead. It tumbled back from the piping on the side of the ship, and fell to the lower level.
I jammed the thin pipe, like a spear from the beam, into the face of the dial. The sixth sweep, a moment later, struck against this obstacle, stopping short of the vertical mark.
I lay on-the beam and wept, and feared that I would fall.
Tribesmen of Gor pages 292-293

Many of the Kurii, I suspected, were Gorean Kurii, wild, degenerate Kurii, descendants of marooned Kurii or survivors of crashed ships. Others, I feared, were ship Kurii. "Hurry!" I cried. One of the two Kurii who had been looking at us suddenly lifted his arm and pointed towards us. On all fours, moving with an agility and speed frightening in so large a beast, they charged. The other manacle snapped free. I saw one of the beasts throw itself, panga still in its fangs, toward Shaba, reaching for the ring on its chain. I hurled the loosened manacles into the face of the other Kur. The beast who had attacked Shaba suddenly drew back, startled. Puzzled it looked at its paw, where there was a flash of bright blood. The panga fell from its fangs. The beast who confronted me, howling, tore the manacle from its slashed, moonlike eye. Its mouth was bloody where it had bitten dn the steel of the panga. I scrambled, leaping, half crawling, to the place on the stones where Ngumi had, after putting me in manacles, dropped my belt, sheath and dagger. I rolled wildly to the side. The panga of the beast who followed me, with a great ringing sound, and a flash of sparks, smote down on the stone. The beast who had attacked Shaba lay dead by his couch. Shaba was coughing and spitting blood. The blade of his fang ring, that containing kanda, was exposed, and bloody. I threw myself to the side again and again the great panga fell. The table on which reposed the map case and notebooks of Shaba seemed to explode in two, wood splintering and flying to the sides, the map case and notebooks, scattering, showering upward.
The Kur, roaring and snarling, looked about. For the moment it had lost me. I kept to its blind side. Then, uttering the war cry of Ko-ro-ba, I leaped upon its back, and, an arm about its throat, plunged the dagger to its heart. I felt the great body shuddering under me and I leaped away from it.
I spun about. I saw another Kur at Shaba. Again Shaba interposed the fang ring. I saw the six digits of the paw close on the chain about Shaba's neck, and then the digits released the chain and the beast slipped back, limply. It sat for a moment, and then, unsteadily, fell to the side.
Explorers of Gor pages436-437

Then its ears lay back against the side of its head.
I stumbled backward, and it sped toward me, swiftly.
I struggled, seized in its arms. I saw the blazing eyes. It lifted me from the ice, lifting me toward its mouth. It held me, looking at me for a moment. Then it turned its head to one side. I struggled and twisted futilely. Its breath was hot in my face, and I could scarcely see it for the vapors of our mingled breathings. Then its jaws reached for my throat. Suddenly and so suddenly for a moment I could not comprehend it there was a hideous shriek from the beast and I could hear nothing else for a moment and it was one of surprise and pain and I was momentarily deafened and then, too, at the same time, reflexively I was flung from it the stars and ice suddenly wild and turned and I struck the ice and rolled and slid across it. I scrambled to my knees. I was more than forty feet from the beast.
It stood, not moving, hunched over, looking at me.
I rose unsteadily to my feet.
It tried to take a step toward me, and then its face contorted with excruciating pain. It lifted its paw toward me.
Then, suddenly, as though struck from the inside, it screamed and fell, rolling, on the ice. Twice more it cried out, and then lay, motionless, but alive, on the ice, on its back, looking up at the moons.
The digestive juices, already released into the true stomach, continued with their implaccable chemical work. Bit by bit, loosened molecule by loosened molecule, in accordance with the patient, relentless laws of chemistry, the sinew slowly dissolved, weakening the bond which held the compressed, contorted, sharpened baleen, until the slender bond broke. The beast screamed again.
Thoughtlessly the beast must have devoured fifteen or twenty of the hidden traps.
I thought now I had little to fear.
I went to the sled. There seemed little of use there.
Fortunately I glanced upward. Somehow it was again on its feet.
It stood hunched over. It looked at me. How indomitable it was. It coughed, wracked with the pain of it, and spat glots of blood on the ice.
Slowly, step by step, it began to move toward me, its paws outstretched.
It then screamed with pain, bent over, as another of the wicked traps sprang open.
It stood there, whimpering on the ice. For a moment I felt moved.
Then, scrambling, on all fours, it charged. I overturned the sled between us. It fell screaming against the head of the sled and, with one paw, swept the sled to one side. It rolled on the ice, leaving it dark with blood. It coughed and screamed, and raged. Then two more of the treacherous baleen traps sprung open. It looked at the moons, agonized. It bit its lips and jaws in pain. It tore at its thigh.
I moved warily away from the beast. I did not think, now, I would have great difficulty in eluding it.
It was bleeding now, profusely, at the mouth and anus. The side of its mouth was half bitten through. The ice was covered with blood, and defecation. Too, it had released its water on the ice.
I moved away from it, drawing it in a circle from the sled. I then doubled back and, taking up the traces of the sled, turned back toward the complex concealed in the ice island.
I pulled the sled, returning toward the complex. The beast, step by painful step, bloody in the snow, followed. I did not let it approach too near.
Judging by its cries, those uttered before, and those which it uttered as it followed me, it must have taken nineteen of the traps into its body. It amazed me that it was not content to lie still and die. Each step must have been torture for it. Yet it continued to follow me. I learned something from it of the tenacity of the Kur.
At last, on the return to the complex, some four Ahn later, it died.
It is not easy to kill a Kur.
Beasts of Gor page 385-387

"In here," said the man in the brown and black livery of those men in the service of the Kurii. He indicated the metal door.
I had walked with them through the steel halls. There had been two of them. Neither of them was armed, nor was I.
I could have done little more in the steel halls than kill them.
One of the men opened the metal door. He then stood to the side, and gestured that I might go within.
I entered the door, and it was closed, and locked, behind me.
I looked about the room. It was domed, and some forty feet in height. It seemed simply furnished. It contained a few objects, mostly at the edges of the room. There were some tables, and cabinets and shelves. There were no chairs. Some chests, too, were at the side of the room. I stood upon a rug of some sort. Its nap was deep. It would give good footing to a clawed foot. The room was rather dark, but I could see dimly. There appeared to be a shallow basin of water sunk in the floor to one side. In the sides of the room, here and there, there seemed windows like portholes. Yet I did not think they opened onto the outside. I could see neither the bleak, moonlit ice of the north beyond them, nor even the lights of stars. Looking up I saw above me, beginning some ten feet from the floor, a network of widely placed wood and steel rods. Oddly, certain portholes, or apertures, or whatever they might be, were set high, too, some twenty feet from the floor, ringing the dome. One could not, given their height, look through them from the floor. By feel I determined that one of the walls, that to my right, as I had entered the room, as was the floor, was lined with some heavy ruglike substance. Thus, something suitably clawed, I supposed, could cling to it. On a table to the side, toward what I took to be the front of the room, there was a dark, boxlike object, about six inches in height, and a foot or so in width and length. At the center of the room, toward the front, there was a wide, low, circular platform. On this something lay.
I sat down, cross-legged, some twenty feet in front of the platform, and waited.
I watched the thing on the platform. It was large, and shaggy, and curled upon itself, and alive.
I was not sure, initially, if there were one or more things on the platform. But then I became confident it was only one thing. I had not realized he was so gigantic.
I sat quietly, watching it breathe.
After a time it stirred. Then, with an ease, an indolent smoothness of motion startling in so large a beast it sat up on the platform, regarding me. It blinked. The pupils of its eyes were like dark moons. It yawned. I saw the double row of fangs, inclined backward in the mouth, to move caught meat toward the throat It blinked again, and began to lick its paws. Its long, dark tongue, too, cleaned the fur about its mouth. It turned away and went to a side of the room where it relieved itself. A lever, depressed, released water, washing the waste away. The animal scratched twice on the plates near where it had relieved itself, as though reflexively covering its spoor. It then, moving on all fours, lightly, moved forward, around the platform, and went to the sunken basin of water in the room. It put down its cupped paws and splashed water in its face, and then shook its head. Too, it took water in its cupped paws, and drank. With one paw it gestured that I should approach, and palm open on the appendage, indicated that I might use the water. Crouching down I took a bit of water in the palm of my hand and drank. We looked at one another across the sunken basin.
The animal, on all fours, withdrew from the edge of the basin.
It projected its claws and scratched on the ruglike substance on the walls. Then, claws catching in the heavy material, it moved up the wall, stretching and twisting its body. Then it dropped down to a pole in the scaffolding. It sat there for a moment, and then, lightly, swung from one pole to another, and then returned, dropping lightly, for an animal of its weight, to the floor before the platform. It stretched again, catlike. And then it rose to its hind feet and looked down at me. It was more than eight feet in height I would have conjectured its weight at some nine hundred pounds. Then it dropped again to all fours and moved to the table on which there reposed the dark, boxlike object.
It moved a switch on the box. It uttered sounds, low, guttural, inquisitive. It did not use human phonemes and so it is difficult, if not impossible, to convey the quality of the sound. If you have heard the noises made by great cats, such as the Bengal tiger or the black-maned lion, and can conceive of such noises articulated with the subtlety and precision of g civilized speech, that will provide you with an approximation of what I heard. On the other hand, the vocal apparatus of the beast was not even of Earth origin. Certain of its sounds, for example, were more reminiscent of the snort of the boar, the snuffling of the grizzly, the hiss of the snake, than those of the large cats. The phonemes of such beasts are unmistakable, but they are, truly, like nothing Earth has prepared one to hear. They are different, not of Earth, alien. To hear these noises, and know they are a speech can be initially very frightening. Evolution did not prepare those of Earth to find intelligence in such a form.
The beast was then silent.
"Are you hungry?" I heard. The sounds, separate, had been emitted from the dark, flatish, boxlike object on the table. It was, then, a translator.
"Not particularly," I said.
After a moment a set of sounds, brief, like a growl, came from the translator. I smiled.
The beast shrugged. It shambled to the side of the room, and there pressed a switch.
A metal panel slid up. I heard a squeal and a small animal, a lart, fled from within toward the opening. It happened quickly. The large six-digited paw of the beast closed about the lart, hideously squealing, and lifted it to its mouth, where it bit through the back of its neck, spitting out vertebrae. The lart, dead, but spasmodically trembling, was then held in the beast’s mouth. It then, with its claws freed, opened its furs and, by feel, delicately, regarding me, fingered out various organs which it laid on the floor before it. In moments it had removed the animal from its mouth. Absently, removing meat from the carcass, it fed.
"You do not cook your meat?" I asked.
The translator, turned on, accepted the human phonemes, processed them, and, momentarily, produced audible, correspondent phonemes in one of the languages of the Kur.
The beast responded. I waited.
"We sometimes do," he said. It looked at me. "Cooked meat weakens the jaws," it said.
"Fire, and cooked meat," I said, "makes possible a smaller jaw and smaller teeth, permitting less cranial musculature and permitting the development of a larger brain case."
"Our brain cases are larger than those of humans," it said. "Our anatomy could not well support a larger cranial development. In our history, as in yours, larger brain cases have been selected for."
"In what way?" I asked.
"In the killings," it said.
"The Kur is not a social animal?" I asked, "It is a social animal," it said. "But it is not as social as the human."
"That is perhaps a drawback to it as a species," I said.
"It has its advantages," it said. "The Kur can live alone. It can go its own way. It does not need its herd."
"Surely, in ancient times, Kurii came together," I said.
"Yes," it said, "in the matings, and the killings." It looked at me, chewing. "But that was long ago," it said. "We have had civilization for one hundred thousand years, as you would understand these things. In the dawn of our prehistory small bands emerged from the burrows and the caves and forests. It was a beginning."
"How can such an animal have a civilizatioit?" I asked.
"Discipline," it said.
"That is a slender thread with which to restrain such fierce, titanic instincts," I said.
The beast extended to me a thigh of the lart. "True," it said. "I see you understand us well."
I took the meat and chewed on it. It was fresh, warm, still porous with blood.
"You like it, do you not?" asked the beast.
"Yes," I said.
"You see," it said, "you are not so different from us."
"I have never claimed to be," I said.
"Is not civilization as great an achievement for your species as for mine?" it asked.
"Perhaps," I said.
"Are the threads on which your survival depends stouter than those on which ours depends?" it asked.
"Perhaps not," I said.
"I know little of humans," it said, "but it is my understanding that most of them are liars and hypocrites. I do not include you in this general charge."
I nodded.
"They think of themselves as civilized animals, and yet they are only animals with a civilization. There is quite a difference."
"Admittedly," I said.
"Those of Earth, as I understand it, which is your home world, are the most despicable. They are petty. They mistake weakness for virtue. They take their lack of appetite, their incapacity to feel, as a merit. How small they are. The more they betray their own nature the more they congratulate themselves on their perfection. And they put economic gain above all. Their greed and their fevered scratching repulses me."
"Not all on Earth are like that," I said.
"It is a food world," it said, "and the food is not of the best."
"What do you put above all?" tasked.
"Glory," it said. It looked at me. "Can you understand that?" it asked.
"I can understand it," I said.
"We are soldiers," it said, "the two of us."
"How is it that an animal without strong social instincts can be concerned with glory?" I asked.
"It emerges, we speculate, from the killings."
"The killings?" I asked.
"Even before the first groups," it said, "we would gather for the matings and killings. Great circles, rings of our people, would form in valleys, to watch."
"You fought for mates?" I asked.
"We fought for the joy of killing," it said. "Mating, however, was a prerogative of the victor." It took a rib bone from the lart and began to thrust it, scraping, between its fangs, freeing and removing bits of wedged meat. "Humans, as I understand it, have two sexes, which, among them, perform all the functions pertinent to the continuance of the species.
"Yes," I said, "that is true."
"We have three, or, if you prefer, four sexes," it said. "There is the dominant, which would, I suppose, correspond most closely to the human male. It is the instinct of the dominant to enter the killings and mate. There is then a form of Kur which closely resembles the dominant but does not join in the killings or mate. You may, or may not, regard this as two sexes. There is then the egg-carrier who is impregnated. This form of Kur is smaller than the dominant or the non-dominant, speaking thusly of the nonreproducing form of Kur."
"The egg-earner is the female," I said.
"If you like," said the beast, "but, shortly after impregnation, within a moon, the egg-carrier deposits the fertilized seed in the third form of Kur, which is mouthed, but sluggish and immobile. These fasten themselves to hard surfaces, rather like dark, globular anemones. The egg develops inside the body of the blood-nurser and, some months later, it tears its way free."
"It has no mother," I said.
"Not in the human sense," it said. "It will, however, usually follow, unless it itself is a blood-nurser, which is drawn out, the first Kur it sees, providing it is either an egg-carrier or a nondominant."
"What if it sees a dominant?" I asked.
"If it is itself an egg-carrier or a nondominant, it will shun the dominant," it said. "This is not unwise, for the dominant may kill it."
"What if it itself is potentially a dominant?" I asked.
The lips of the beast drew back. "That is what all hope," it said. "If it is a dominant and it encounters a dominant, it will bare its tiny fangs and expose its claws."
"Will the dominant not kill it then?" I asked.
"Perhaps later in the killings, when it is large and strong," he said, "but certainly not when it is small. It is on such that the continuance of the species depends. You see, it must be tested in the killings."
"Are you a dominant?" I asked.
"Of course," it said. Then it added, "I shall not kill you for the question."
"I meant no harm," I said.
Its lips drew back.
"Are most Kurii dominants?" I asked.
"Most are born dominants," it said, "but most do not survive the killings."
"It seems surprising that there are many Kurii," I said.
"Not at all," he said. "The egg-carriers can be frequently impregnated and frequently deposit the fertilized egg in a blood-nurser. There are large numbers of blood-nursers. In the human species it takes several months for a female to carry and deliver an offspring. In the same amount of time a Kur egg-carrier will develop seven to eight eggs, each of which may be fertilized and deposited in a blood-nurser."
"Do Kur young not drink milk?" I asked.
"The young receive blood in the nurser," he said, "When it is born it does not need milk, but water and common protein."
"It is born fanged?" I asked.
"Of course," it said. "And it is capable of stalking and killing small animals shortly after it leaves the nurser."
"Are the nursers rational?" I asked.
"We do not think so," it said.
"Can they feel anything?" I asked.
"They doubtless have some form of sensation," it said. "They recoil when struck or burned."
"But there are native Kurii on Gor," I said, "or, at any rate, Kurii who have reproduced themselves on this world."
"Certain ships, some of them originally intended for colonization, carried representatives of our various sexes, with the exception of the nondominants," it said. "We have also, where we knew of Kurii groups, sometimes managed to bring in egg-carriers and blood-nursers."
"It is to your advantage that there be native Kurii," I said.
"Of course," he said, "yet they are seldom useful allies. They lapse too swiftly into barbarism." He lowered the bone with which he was picking his teeth and threw it, and the remains of the lart, to the side of the room. He then took a soft, white cloth from a drawer in the table on which the translator reposed, and wiped his paws. "Civilization is fragile," he said.
"Is there an order among your sexes?" I asked.
"Of course there is a biological order," he said. "Structure is a function of nature. How could it be otherwise?"
"There is first the dominant, and then the egg-carrier, and then the nondominant, and then, if one considers such things Kur, the blood-nurser."
"The female, or egg-carrier, is dominant over the non-dominant?" I asked.
"Of course," he said. ‘They are despicable."
"Suppose a dominant is victorious in the killings," I said. "Then what occurs?"
"Many things could occur," he said, "but he then, generally, with a club, would indicate what egg-carriers he desires. He then ties them together and drives them to his cave. In the cave he impregnates them and makes them serve him."
"Do they attempt to run away?" I asked.
"No," he said. "He would hunt them down and kill them. But after he has impregnated them they tend to remain, even when untied, for he is then their dominant."
"What of the nondominants?" I asked.
"They remain outside the cave until the dominant is finished, fearing him muchly. When he has left the cave they creep within, bringing meat and gifts to the females, that they may be permitted to remain within the cave, as part of the dominant’s household. They serve under the females and take their orders from them. Most work, including the care of the young, is performed by nondominants."
"I do net think I would care to be a nondominant," I said.
"They are totally despicable," he said, "but yet, oddly, sometimes a nondominant becomes a dominant. This is a hard thing to understand. Sometimes it happens when there is no dominant in the vicinity. Sometimes it seems to happen for no obvious reason; sometimes It happens when a nondominant is humiliated and worked beyond his level of tolerance. It is interesting. This occasional, almost inexplicable transformation of a nondominant into a dominant is the reason our biologists differ as to whether our species has three, or four sexes."
"Perhaps the nondominant is only a latent dominant," I said.
"Perhaps," he said. "It is hard to tell."
"The restriction of mating to the dominants," I said, "plus the selections in the killings, must tend to produce a species unusually aggressive and savage."
"It tends also to produce one that is extremely intelligent," said the animal.
I nodded.
"But we are civilized folk," said the animal. It rose to Its feet and went to a cabinet. "You must not think of us in terms of our bloody past."
"Then, on the steel ships," I said, "the killings, and the fierce matings, no longer take place."
The animal, at the opened cabinet, turned to regard me. "I did not say that," he said.
"The killings and the matings then continue to take place on the steel worlds?" I asked.
"Of course," he said.
"The past, then, is still with you on the steel worlds," I said.
"Yes," it said. "Is the past not always with us?"
"Perhaps," I said.
The beast returned from the cabinet with two glasses and a bottle.
"Is that not the paga of Ar?" I asked.
"Is it not one of your favorites?" he asked, "See," he said, "It has the seal of the brewer, Temus."
"That is remarkable," I said. "You are very thoughtful."
"I have been saving it," he told me.
"For me?" I asked.
"Of course," he said. "I was confident you would get through.’
"I am honored," I said.
"I have waited so long to talk to you," he said.
He poured two glasses of paga, and reclosed the bottle. We lifted the glasses, and touched them, the one to the other.
"To our war," he said.
"To our war," I said.
We drank.
"I cannot even pronounce your name," I said.
"It will be sufficient," he said, "to call me Zarendargar, which can be pronounced by human beings, or, if you like, even more simply, Half-Ear."
Beasts of Gor pages 364-370

In the doorway, silhouetted against flames behind them we saw great, black, shaggy figures Then one leapt within the hall. In one hand it carried a gigantic ax, whose handle was perhaps eight feet long, whose blade, from tip to tip, might have been better than two feet in length; on its other arm it carried a great, round, iron shield, double strapped; it lifted it, and the ax; its arms were incredibly long, perhaps some seven feet in length; about its left arm was a spiral band of gold; it was the Kur which had addressed the assembly. It threw back its head and opened its jaws, eyes blazing, and uttered the blood roar of the aroused Kur; then it bent over, regarding us, shoulders hunched, its claws leaping from its soft, furred sheaths; it then laid its ears back flat against the sides of its great head. no one could move. then, other Kurri behind it, crowding about it, past it, it shrieked, lips drawn back, with a hideous sound, which, somehow, from its lips and mien, and mostly from its eyes, I took to be a sign of pleasure, of anticipation; I would learn later that this sound is instinctively uttered by Kurii when they are preparing to take blood.
Marauders of Gor, Page 203

It moved a switch on the box. It uttered sounds, low, guttural, inquisitive. It did not use human phonemes and so it is difficult, if not impossible, to convey the quality of the sound. If you have heard the noises made by great cats, such as the Bengal tiger or the black maned lion, and can conceive such noises articulated with subtlety and precision of a civilized speech, that will provide you with an approximation of what I heard. ~ "Our brain cases are larger then yours," it said. "Our anatomy could not well support a larger cranial development. In our history, as in your, larger brain cases have been selected for." "In what way?" I asked. "In the killings." It said. "Is the Kur a social animal?" I asked. "It is a social animal," it said," But it is not as social as the human." "that is perhaps a drawback to it as a species," I said. "It has its advantages," it said. " the Kur can live alone. It can go its own way. It does not need its herd." "Surly in ancient times, Kurri came together," I said. "Yes" it said. "in the matings, and the killings," It looked at me , chewing." But that was long ago," it said." We have had civilization for one hundred thousand years, as you would understand these things. In the dawn of our prehistory small bands emerged from the burrows and the caves and forests. It was a beginning." ~ "What do you put above all?" I asked. "Glory," it said. It looked at me. "can you understand that?" it asked. ~ "How is it that an animal without strong social instincts can be concerned with Glory ?" I asked. "It emerges, we speculate, from the killings." "the killings?" I asked. "Even before the first groups," he said, "we would gather for the matings and killings. Great circles, rings of our people, would form in valleys to watch." "You fought for mates?" I asked. "We fought for the joy of killing," it said, " Mating, however, was a prerogative of the victor." It took a rib bone from the lart and began to thrust it, scraping, between his fangs, freeing and removing bits of wedged meat. "Humans, as I understand it, perform all the functions pertinent to the continuance of the species." "Yes," I said, "that is true." "We have three, or, if you prefer, four sexes," it said. "There is the dominant, which would, I suppose, correspond most closely to the human male. It is the instinct of the dominant to enter the killings and mate. there is then the form of the Kur which closely resembles the dominant but does not join in the killings or mate. You may , or may not, regard this as two sexes. There is then the egg carrier who is impregnated. This form of Kur is smaller then the dominant or the non dominant, speaking thusly of the non reproducing form of Kur." "the egg carrier is the female." I said. "If you like" said the beast. "But shortly after the impregnation, within a moon, the egg carrier deposits the fertilized seed in the third form of Kur, which is mouthed, but sluggish and immobile. those fasten themselves to hard surfaces, rather like dark, globular anemones. the egg develops inside the body of the blood nurser and, some months later, it tears its way free." "It has no mother." I said. "Not in the human sense." It said. "It will however, usually follow, unless it itself is a blood nurser, which is drawn out, the first Kur it sees, providing it is either and egg carrier or a non dominant." ~ "the young receive blood in the nurser," he said. "When it is born it does not need milk, but water and common protein." "It is born fanged?" I asked. "Of course," it said. "And it is capable of stalking and killing small animals shortly after it leaves the blood nurser." ~ "But there are native Kurrii on Gor," I said, " or at any rate Kurrii who have reproduced themselves on this world." "Certain ships, some of them originally intended for colonization, carried representatives of our various sexes, with the exception of non dominants," it said "We have also, where we have known of Kurrii groups, sometimes managed to bring in egg carriers and blood nursers." ~ "Is there an order to your sexes?" I asked. "Of course there is a biological order," He said, "Structure is a function of nature. How could it be otherwise? There is first the Dominant, and then the egg carrier, and then the non dominant, and then , if one considers such things Kur, the blood nursers." "the female, or egg carrier, is dominant over the non dominant?" I asked. "Of course," he said." They are despicable." "Suppose a dominant is victorious in the killings?" I said, "What then occurs?" "Many things could occur," He said, " but he then, generally, with a club, would indicate what egg carriers he desires. He then ties them together and drives them to his cave. In the cave he impregnates them and makes them serve him." "Do they attempt to run away?" I asked. "No," he said, " He would hunt them down and kill them. But after he has impregnated them they tend to remain, even when untied, for he is then their dominant."
Explorers of Gor, pgs369-370

Incidentally, there are many brands on gor. Two that almost never occur on Gor, by the way, are those of the moons and the collar, and of the chain and the claw. The first of these commonly occurs in certain of the Gorean enclaves on Earth, which serves as headquarters for agents of the priest kings, the second tends to occur in the lairs of the Kurri agents on earth; ~the chain and claw brand, signifies, of course, slavery and subjection within the compass of the Kur yoke.
Explorers of Gor, pg12

Cernus and Ho-Tu rode together in another basket. The tarn basket may or may not have guidance attachments, permitting the tarn to be controlled from the basket. If the guidance attachments are in place, then the tarn is seldom saddled, but wears only basket harness. If the basket is merely carried, and the tarn cannot be controlled from the basket, then the tarn wears the tarn saddle and is controlled by a tarnsman. The basket of Cernus and my basket both had guidance attachments, similar to those of the common tarn saddle, a main basket ring corresponding to the main saddle ring, and six leather straps going to the thoat-strap rings. The other three baskets, however, had no control attachments and those birds wore saddles and were guided by tarnsmen. Tarn baskets, incidentally, in which I had never before ridden, are of many different sizes and varieties, depending on the function for which they are intended. Some, for example, are little more than flat cradles for carrying planking and such; others are long and cylindrical, lined with verrskin, for transporting beverages and such; most heavy hauling, of course, is done by tharlarion wagon; a common sort of tarn basket, of the sort in which I found myself, is a general utility basket, flat-bottomed, square-sided, about four feet deep, four feet wide and five feet long. At a gesture from Cernus the birds took wing, and I felt my basket on its heavy leather runners slide across the roof for a few feet and then drop sickeningly off the edge of the cylinder, only to be jerked up short by the ropes, hover for a moment as the tarn fought the weight, and then begin to sail smoothly behind the bird, its adjustments made, its mighty wings hurling the air contemptuously behind it.
The spires of Ar, depending on the weather, can normally be seen quite clearly from the nearer ranges of the Boltai, or the Red Mountains, the greatest mountain range of know Gor, superior to both those of Thentis and the Sardar itself. We flew for perhaps an Ahn and then, following a lead tarnsman, dipped and, one at a time, the others circling, landed on a rocky shelf on the side of a steep cliff, apparently no different from dozens of other such shelves we had already passed, save that this shelf, due to an overhang of the cliff above tended to be somewhat more sheltered than most. Once landed the tarns and baskets were moved back beneath the overhang, beneath which we took up our post as well. No one talked. We stood there in the night, in the cold, for perhaps better than two Ahn. Then I heard one of the men-at-arms say, “There!”
The black disk approached, more slowly now, seeming to sense its way. It dropped among the peaks and, moving delicately among the rocks, neared our shelf.
“It is strange,” whispered one of the men-at-arms, “that Priest-Kings must act with such secrecy.”
“Do not question the will of Priest-Kings,” said another.
I was startled.
About a hundred yards from the shelf the ship stopped, stationary, more than two thousand feet from the ground below.
I saw Ho-Tu looking at the ship, marveling. “I have seen it,” he said, “a hundred times and yet, each time, it seems to me more strange. It is a ship. But it does not float on water. It floats in the sky. How can it be?”
“It is the power of Priest-Kings,” whispered one of the men-at-arms.
Cernus now, from beneath his cloak, removed a small, flat box, and with his finger pressed a button on this box. A tiny light on the box flashed red twice, then green, then red again. There was a moment’s pause and then, from the ship, there came an answering light, repeating the signal, except that its signal terminated with two reds.
The men stirred uneasily.
The ship then began to ease toward the shelf, moving perhaps no more rapidly than a man might walk. Then, clearing the shelf by no more than six inches, it seemed to rest there, not actually touching the rock. The ship was disklike, as are the ships of Priest-Kings, but it had observation apertures, which the ships of Priest-Kings lack. It was about thirty feet in diameter, about eight feet in height. There was no evidence of the discharge of energy.
Cernus looked at me. “To speak of what you see is, of course, death,” said he.
A panel in the side of the black ship slid back and a man’s head appeared.
I do not know what I expected to see, but I was greatly relieved. My hand was on the hilt of my sword, sweating.
“The trip was uneventful, I trust,” said Cernus, putting the signal apparatus back in his robes.
The man, who wore a simple dark tunic and sandals, dropped out to the ground. His hair was dark and clipped short; his face intelligent, but hard. On his right cheek, over the cheekbone was the Thief brand of the Caste of Thieves of Port Kar, who use the small brand to identify their members. “Look,” said the man to Cernus, leading him about the side of the ship.
There, in the side, was a great smeared wrinkle of erupted metal.
“A patrol ship,” said the man.
“You are fortunate,” said Cernus.
The man laughed.
“Have you brought the apparatus?” asked Cernus.
“Yes,” said the man.
Few of the men on that rocky shelf reacted much to what was going on. I gathered that they had seen this ship, or others like it, before, but that they had little inkling of the nature of the events that were transpiring. Indeed, I suspected that other than Cernus there were none who truly understood the nature of the ship and its mission, and perhaps he only incompletely. I myself, from my conversations with Misk, probably suspected more of its role and purposes than any other on that shelf, with the exception of Cernus himself.
“What do you think?” asked Cernus, turning to me, pleased.
“The power of the House of Cernus is great indeed,” I said, “greater than I had dreamed.”
Cernus laughed.
The man from the ship, seemingly anxious to be on his way, had now returned to the interior of the ship. Inside I could see four or five others, clad much as he was, all human. They seemed apprehensive, nervous.
Almost immediately the first man, he who wore the tiny Thief’s brand, returned to the panel ad crouching down, held out a small, obviously heavy box, to Cernus, who, in spite of the fact that he was the master of the House of Cernus itself, took it in his own hands.
Cernus returned to his carrying basket, holding the small box heavily before him. He motioned for Ho-Tu to enter the basket and the Master Keeper did so. Then receiving the box from Cernus, he placed it carefully in the basket. Cernus then himself climbed into the basket. He spoke to one of the men-at-arms. “Unload the cargo,” said he. Then, using the one-strap on the basket ring, Cernus signaled the tarn. The bird stalked out from under the overhang, poised itself on the edge of the shelf, and then, with a leap and a beating of its wings, entered its element.
I saw the basket containing Cernus and Ho-Tu flying toward Ar. I gathered that the main cargo, whatever it was, had already been unloaded, that it reposed in the small, heavy box, and that it was now on the way to the House of Cernus.
“Hurry!” called the man with the Thief’s scar, and those of the staff of the House, including even the tarnsmen, stood lined before the panel and received various goods which they placed in the carrying baskets. I alone did not participate in this work. I did, however, observe it carefully. Certain of the boxes which were unloaded, to my surprise, bore lettering in various languages of Earth. I recognized English, and French and German, something that was presumably Arabic, and other boxes which were marked with characters doubtless either Chinese of Japanese. I suspected, however, that the goods in these boxes might not all be those of Earth. I suspected rather that in some of these boxes at least might be goods from the ships of Others, transported by way of Earth, in ships to be piloted by men. Some of the goods, however, were surely of Earth. Among them was a high-powered rifle with telescopic sights. To possess such a weapon, of course, on Gor was a capital offense, it being a violation of the weapon laws of Priest-Kings.
“What is this?” asked one of the men-at-arms.
“It is a crossbow,” said the man with the Thief’s scar. “It shoots a tiny lead quarrel.”
The man looked at it skeptically. “Where is the bow and cord?” he asked.
“Inside the quarrel,” said the man, impatiently. “It is in a powder. A spark hits the quarrel and the powder cries out and flees, pushing the quarrel before it, down this tube.”
“Oh,” said the man-at-arms.
The man with the Thief’s scar laughed, and turned to accept another box from a man deeper within the ship.
“Surely it is a forbidden weapon,” said the man-at-arms.
“Not to Priest-Kings,” said the man in the ship.
The man-at-arms shrugged and took the rifle, or crossbow as he thought of it, and surely the stock resembled that of a crossbow, and placed it in one of the carrying baskets.
“Ah,” said one of the tarnsmen, seeing the man on the ship hand the first of several heavy squares of gold. I smiled to myself. This was cargo the men on the shelf could understand. There was a large quantity of this gold, perhaps forty squares, which were distributed among the four tarn baskets remaining on the ledge. It was, I assumed, Earth gold. It was undoubtebly such gold which permitted the House of Cernus to gain significant influence in the city, sponsoring races and games, as well as permitting the house to undersell, when it pleased, other Merchants.
“How many slaves?” asked one of the men-at-arms.
“Ten,” said the man with the Thief’s scar.  ASSASSIN OF GOR Pages 94-99

“It could only have been one of the Kurii,” said Samos.
“The Kurii?” I asked.
“The word is a Gorean corruption of their name for themselves, for their kind,” said Samos.
“In Torvaldsland.” Said Tab, “ that means “beasts’.”
“That is interesting,” I said. If Samos were correct that ‘Kurii’ was a Gorean corruption of the name of such animals for themselves, and that the word was used in Torvaldsland as a designation for beasts, then it seemed not unlikely that such animals were not unknown in Torvaldsland, at least in certain areas, perhaps remote ones. 
MARAUDERS OF GOR Page 21

On a work of vengeance,” I told him. “I hunt one of the Kurii.”
“They are dangerous,” said Ivar Forkbeard.
I shrugged.
“One has struck here,” said Ottar, suddenly.
Ivar looked at him.
“Last month,” said Ottar, “a verr was taken.”
I knew then that it could not be the one of the Kurii I sought.
“We hunted him, but failed to find him,” said Ottar.
“Doubtless he has left the district,” said Ivar.
“Do the beasts often bother you?” I asked.
“No,” said Ivar. “They seldom hunt this far to the south.”
“They are rational,” I told him. “They have a language.”
“That is known to me,” said Ivar.
I did not tell Ivar that those he knew as Kurii, or the beasts, were actually specimens of an alien race, that they, or those in their ships, were locked in war with Priest-Kings for the domination of two worlds, Gor and the Earth. In these battles, unknown to most men, even of Gor, from time to time, ships of the Kurii had been shattered and fallen to the surface. It was the practice of Priest-Kings to destroy the wrecks of such ships but, usually, at least, they did not attempt to hunt and exterminate survivors. If the marooned Kurii abided by the weapon and technology laws of Priest-Kings, they, like men, another life form, were permitted to survive. The Kurii I knew were beasts of fierce, terrible instincts, who regarded humans, and other beasts, as food. Blood, as to the shark, was an agitant to their systems. They were extremely powerful, and highly intelligent, though their intellectual capacities, like those of humans, were far below those of Priest-Kings. Fond of killing, and technologically advanced, they were, in their way, worthy adversaries of Priest-Kings. Most lived in ships, the steel wolves of space, their instincts bridled, to some extent, by Ship Loyalty, Ship Law. It was thought that their own world had been destroyed. This seemed plausible, when one considered their ferocity and greed, and what might be its implementation in virtue of an advanced technology. Their own world destroyed, the Kurii now wished another.
The Kurii, of course, with which the men of Torvaldsland might have had dealings, might have been removed by as much as generations from the Kurii of the ships. It was regarded as one of the great dangers of the war, however, that the Kurii of the ships might make contact with, and utilize, the Kurii of Gor in their schemes.
Men and the Kurii, where they met, which was usually only in the north, regarded one another as mortal enemies. The Kurii not unoften fed on men, and men, of course, in consequence, attempted to hunt and slay, when they could, the beasts. Usually, however, because of the power and ferocity of the beasts, men would hunt them only to the borders of their own districts, particularly if only the loss of a bosk or thrall was involved. It was usually regarded as quite sufficient, even by the men of Torvaldsland, to drive one of the beasts out of their own district. They were especially pleased when they had managed to carry one into the district of an enemy.
“How will you know the one of the Kurii whom you seek?” asked Ivar.
“I think,” I said, “he will know me.”
“You are a brave, or foolish, man,” said Ivar. 
MARAUDERS OF GOR Pages 91-93

"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, crooked-backed, was a cringing, lame thrall
"Lead us to what you have found," demanded the Fork-beard.
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 sleen 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, ap-prehensive. 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 ForkbeaPd. "Kur! Kur!" I heard men cry. The beast stood there, blink-ing, 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, extra-jointed, 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 torch-light, 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 for-ward, 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 excel-lent 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 bosk?"
"And, in the hall," it said, its lips drawing back from its jaws, "last night a man."
"Kill it," said Ivar Forkbeard.
Four spears were raised, but they did not strike.
"No," said Ivar Forkbeard. "It is dead."
Marauders of Gor pages 107-110

The soft flesh of the human female, I knew, was regarded as a delicacy among the Kurii.
Marauders of Gor, page 177

"Describe the beast," I said to the rencer. "I did not see it well," he said. "It could only have been one of the Kurii," said Samos. "The Kurii" I asked. "The word is a Gorean corruption of their name for themselves, for their kind," said Samos. "In Torvaldsland," said Tab, "that word means 'beasts'." "That is interesting," I said. If Samos were correct that 'Kurii' was a Gorean corruption of the name of such animals for themselves, and that the word was used in Torvaldsland as a designation for beasts, then it seemed not unlikely that such animals were not unknown in Torvaldsland, at least in certain areas, perhaps remote ones.
Marauders of Gor, page 21

On a work of vengeance,” I told him. “I hunt one of the Kurii.”
“They are dangerous,” said Ivar Forkbeard.
I shrugged.
“One has struck here,” said Ottar, suddenly.
Ivar looked at him.
“Last month,” said Ottar, “a verr was taken.”
I knew then that it could not be the one of the Kurii I sought.
“We hunted him, but failed to find him,” said Ottar.
“Doubtless he has left the district,” said Ivar.
“Do the beasts often bother you?” I asked.
“No,” said Ivar. “They seldom hunt this far to the south.”
“They are rational,” I told him. “They have a language.”
“That is known to me,” said Ivar.
I did not tell Ivar that those he knew as Kurii, or the beasts, were actually specimens of an alien race, that they, or those in their ships, were locked in war with Priest-Kings for the domination of two worlds, Gor and the Earth. In these battles, unknown to most men, even of Gor, from time to time, ships of the Kurii had been shattered and fallen to the surface. It was the practice of Priest-Kings to destroy the wrecks of such ships but, usually, at least, they did not attempt to hunt and exterminate survivors. If the marooned Kurii abided by the weapon and technology laws of Priest-Kings, they, like men, another life form, were permitted to survive. The Kurii I knew were beasts of fierce, terrible instincts, who regarded humans, and other beasts, as food. Blood, as to the shark, was an agitant to their systems. They were extremely powerful, and highly intelligent, though their intellectual capacities, like those of humans, were far below those of Priest-Kings. Fond of killing, and technologically advanced, they were, in their way, worthy adversaries of Priest-Kings. Most lived in ships, the steel wolves of space, their instincts bridled, to some extent, by Ship Loyalty, Ship Law. It was thought that their own world had been destroyed. This seemed plausible, when one considered their ferocity and greed, and what might be its implementation in virtue of an advanced technology. Their own world destroyed, the Kurii now wished another.
The Kurii, of course, with which the men of Torvaldsland might have had dealings, might have been removed by as much as generations from the Kurii of the ships. It was regarded as one of the great dangers of the war, however, that the Kurii of the ships might make contact with, and utilize, the Kurii of Gor in their schemes.
Men and the Kurii, where they met, which was usually only in the north, regarded one another as mortal enemies. The Kurii not unoften fed on men, and men, of course, in consequence, attempted to hunt and slay, when they could, the beasts. Usually, however, because of the power and ferocity of the beasts, men would hunt them only to the borders of their own districts, particularly if only the loss of a bosk or thrall was involved. It was usually regarded as quite sufficient, even by the men of Torvaldsland, to drive one of the beasts out of their own district. They were especially pleased when they had managed to carry one into the district of an enemy.
“How will you know the one of the Kurii whom you seek?” asked Ivar.
“I think,” I said, “he will know me.”
“You are a brave, or foolish, man,” said Ivar. 
MARAUDERS OF GOR Pages 91-93

“It could only have been one of the Kurii,” said Samos.
“The Kurii?” I asked.
“The word is a Gorean corruption of their name for themselves, for their kind,” said Samos.
“In Torvaldsland.” Said Tab, “ that means “beasts’.”
“That is interesting,” I said. If Samos were correct that ‘Kurii’ was a Gorean corruption of the name of such animals for themselves, and that the word was used in Torvaldsland as a designation for beasts, then it seemed not unlikely that such animals were not unknown in Torvaldsland, at least in certain areas, perhaps remote ones. 
MARAUDERS OF GOR Page 21

Cernus and Ho-Tu rode together in another basket. The tarn basket may or may not have guidance attachments, permitting the tarn to be controlled from the basket. If the guidance attachments are in place, then the tarn is seldom saddled, but wears only basket harness. If the basket is merely carried, and the tarn cannot be controlled from the basket, then the tarn wears the tarn saddle and is controlled by a tarnsman. The basket of Cernus and my basket both had guidance attachments, similar to those of the common tarn saddle, a main basket ring corresponding to the main saddle ring, and six leather straps going to the thoat-strap rings. The other three baskets, however, had no control attachments and those birds wore saddles and were guided by tarnsmen. Tarn baskets, incidentally, in which I had never before ridden, are of many different sizes and varieties, depending on the function for which they are intended. Some, for example, are little more than flat cradles for carrying planking and such; others are long and cylindrical, lined with verrskin, for transporting beverages and such; most heavy hauling, of course, is done by tharlarion wagon; a common sort of tarn basket, of the sort in which I found myself, is a general utility basket, flat-bottomed, square-sided, about four feet deep, four feet wide and five feet long. At a gesture from Cernus the birds took wing, and I felt my basket on its heavy leather runners slide across the roof for a few feet and then drop sickeningly off the edge of the cylinder, only to be jerked up short by the ropes, hover for a moment as the tarn fought the weight, and then begin to sail smoothly behind the bird, its adjustments made, its mighty wings hurling the air contemptuously behind it.
The spires of Ar, depending on the weather, can normally be seen quite clearly from the nearer ranges of the Boltai, or the Red Mountains, the greatest mountain range of know Gor, superior to both those of Thentis and the Sardar itself. We flew for perhaps an Ahn and then, following a lead tarnsman, dipped and, one at a time, the others circling, landed on a rocky shelf on the side of a steep cliff, apparently no different from dozens of other such shelves we had already passed, save that this shelf, due to an overhang of the cliff above tended to be somewhat more sheltered than most. Once landed the tarns and baskets were moved back beneath the overhang, beneath which we took up our post as well. No one talked. We stood there in the night, in the cold, for perhaps better than two Ahn. Then I heard one of the men-at-arms say, “There!”
The black disk approached, more slowly now, seeming to sense its way. It dropped among the peaks and, moving delicately among the rocks, neared our shelf.
“It is strange,” whispered one of the men-at-arms, “that Priest-Kings must act with such secrecy.”
“Do not question the will of Priest-Kings,” said another.
I was startled.
About a hundred yards from the shelf the ship stopped, stationary, more than two thousand feet from the ground below.
I saw Ho-Tu looking at the ship, marveling. “I have seen it,” he said, “a hundred times and yet, each time, it seems to me more strange. It is a ship. But it does not float on water. It floats in the sky. How can it be?”
“It is the power of Priest-Kings,” whispered one of the men-at-arms.
Cernus now, from beneath his cloak, removed a small, flat box, and with his finger pressed a button on this box. A tiny light on the box flashed red twice, then green, then red again. There was a moment’s pause and then, from the ship, there came an answering light, repeating the signal, except that its signal terminated with two reds.
The men stirred uneasily.
The ship then began to ease toward the shelf, moving perhaps no more rapidly than a man might walk. Then, clearing the shelf by no more than six inches, it seemed to rest there, not actually touching the rock. The ship was disklike, as are the ships of Priest-Kings, but it had observation apertures, which the ships of Priest-Kings lack. It was about thirty feet in diameter, about eight feet in height. There was no evidence of the discharge of energy.
Cernus looked at me. “To speak of what you see is, of course, death,” said he.
A panel in the side of the black ship slid back and a man’s head appeared.
I do not know what I expected to see, but I was greatly relieved. My hand was on the hilt of my sword, sweating.
“The trip was uneventful, I trust,” said Cernus, putting the signal apparatus back in his robes.
The man, who wore a simple dark tunic and sandals, dropped out to the ground. His hair was dark and clipped short; his face intelligent, but hard. On his right cheek, over the cheekbone was the Thief brand of the Caste of Thieves of Port Kar, who use the small brand to identify their members. “Look,” said the man to Cernus, leading him about the side of the ship.
There, in the side, was a great smeared wrinkle of erupted metal.
“A patrol ship,” said the man.
“You are fortunate,” said Cernus.
The man laughed.
“Have you brought the apparatus?” asked Cernus.
“Yes,” said the man.
Few of the men on that rocky shelf reacted much to what was going on. I gathered that they had seen this ship, or others like it, before, but that they had little inkling of the nature of the events that were transpiring. Indeed, I suspected that other than Cernus there were none who truly understood the nature of the ship and its mission, and perhaps he only incompletely. I myself, from my conversations with Misk, probably suspected more of its role and purposes than any other on that shelf, with the exception of Cernus himself.
“What do you think?” asked Cernus, turning to me, pleased.
“The power of the House of Cernus is great indeed,” I said, “greater than I had dreamed.”
Cernus laughed.
The man from the ship, seemingly anxious to be on his way, had now returned to the interior of the ship. Inside I could see four or five others, clad much as he was, all human. They seemed apprehensive, nervous.
Almost immediately the first man, he who wore the tiny Thief’s brand, returned to the panel ad crouching down, held out a small, obviously heavy box, to Cernus, who, in spite of the fact that he was the master of the House of Cernus itself, took it in his own hands.
Cernus returned to his carrying basket, holding the small box heavily before him. He motioned for Ho-Tu to enter the basket and the Master Keeper did so. Then receiving the box from Cernus, he placed it carefully in the basket. Cernus then himself climbed into the basket. He spoke to one of the men-at-arms. “Unload the cargo,” said he. Then, using the one-strap on the basket ring, Cernus signaled the tarn. The bird stalked out from under the overhang, poised itself on the edge of the shelf, and then, with a leap and a beating of its wings, entered its element.
I saw the basket containing Cernus and Ho-Tu flying toward Ar. I gathered that the main cargo, whatever it was, had already been unloaded, that it reposed in the small, heavy box, and that it was now on the way to the House of Cernus.
“Hurry!” called the man with the Thief’s scar, and those of the staff of the House, including even the tarnsmen, stood lined before the panel and received various goods which they placed in the carrying baskets. I alone did not participate in this work. I did, however, observe it carefully. Certain of the boxes which were unloaded, to my surprise, bore lettering in various languages of Earth. I recognized English, and French and German, something that was presumably Arabic, and other boxes which were marked with characters doubtless either Chinese of Japanese. I suspected, however, that the goods in these boxes might not all be those of Earth. I suspected rather that in some of these boxes at least might be goods from the ships of Others, transported by way of Earth, in ships to be piloted by men. Some of the goods, however, were surely of Earth. Among them was a high-powered rifle with telescopic sights. To possess such a weapon, of course, on Gor was a capital offense, it being a violation of the weapon laws of Priest-Kings.
“What is this?” asked one of the men-at-arms.
“It is a crossbow,” said the man with the Thief’s scar. “It shoots a tiny lead quarrel.”
The man looked at it skeptically. “Where is the bow and cord?” he asked.
“Inside the quarrel,” said the man, impatiently. “It is in a powder. A spark hits the quarrel and the powder cries out and flees, pushing the quarrel before it, down this tube.”
“Oh,” said the man-at-arms.
The man with the Thief’s scar laughed, and turned to accept another box from a man deeper within the ship.
“Surely it is a forbidden weapon,” said the man-at-arms.
“Not to Priest-Kings,” said the man in the ship.
The man-at-arms shrugged and took the rifle, or crossbow as he thought of it, and surely the stock resembled that of a crossbow, and placed it in one of the carrying baskets.
“Ah,” said one of the tarnsmen, seeing the man on the ship hand the first of several heavy squares of gold. I smiled to myself. This was cargo the men on the shelf could understand. There was a large quantity of this gold, perhaps forty squares, which were distributed among the four tarn baskets remaining on the ledge. It was, I assumed, Earth gold. It was undoubtebly such gold which permitted the House of Cernus to gain significant influence in the city, sponsoring races and games, as well as permitting the house to undersell, when it pleased, other Merchants.
“How many slaves?” asked one of the men-at-arms.
“Ten,” said the man with the Thief’s scar.  ASSASSIN OF GOR Pages 94-99

"In here," said the man in the brown and black livery of those men in the service of the Kurii. He indicated the metal door.
I had walked with them through the steel halls. There had been two of them. Neither of them was armed, nor was I.
I could have done little more in the steel halls than kill them.
One of the men opened the metal door. He then stood to the side, and gestured that I might go within.
I entered the door, and it was closed, and locked, behind me.
I looked about the room. It was domed, and some forty feet in height. It seemed simply furnished. It contained a few objects, mostly at the edges of the room. There were some tables, and cabinets and shelves. There were no chairs. Some chests, too, were at the side of the room. I stood upon a rug of some sort. Its nap was deep. It would give good footing to a clawed foot. The room was rather dark, but I could see dimly. There appeared to be a shallow basin of water sunk in the floor to one side. In the sides of the room, here and there, there seemed windows like portholes. Yet I did not think they opened onto the outside. I could see neither the bleak, moonlit ice of the north beyond them, nor even the lights of stars. Looking up I saw above me, beginning some ten feet from the floor, a network of widely placed wood and steel rods. Oddly, certain portholes, or apertures, or whatever they might be, were set high, too, some twenty feet from the floor, ringing the dome. One could not, given their height, look through them from the floor. By feel I determined that one of the walls, that to my right, as I had entered the room, as was the floor, was lined with some heavy ruglike substance. Thus, something suitably clawed, I supposed, could cling to it. On a table to the side, toward what I took to be the front of the room, there was a dark, boxlike object, about six inches in height, and a foot or so in width and length. At the center of the room, toward the front, there was a wide, low, circular platform. On this something lay.
I sat down, cross-legged, some twenty feet in front of the platform, and waited.
I watched the thing on the platform. It was large, and shaggy, and curled upon itself, and alive.
I was not sure, initially, if there were one or more things on the platform. But then I became confident it was only one thing. I had not realized he was so gigantic.
I sat quietly, watching it breathe.
After a time it stirred. Then, with an ease, an indolent smoothness of motion startling in so large a beast it sat up on the platform, regarding me. It blinked. The pupils of its eyes were like dark moons. It yawned. I saw the double row of fangs, inclined backward in the mouth, to move caught meat toward the throat It blinked again, and began to lick its paws. Its long, dark tongue, too, cleaned the fur about its mouth. It turned away and went to a side of the room where it relieved itself. A lever, depressed, released water, washing the waste away. The animal scratched twice on the plates near where it had relieved itself, as though reflexively covering its spoor. It then, moving on all fours, lightly, moved forward, around the platform, and went to the sunken basin of water in the room. It put down its cupped paws and splashed water in its face, and then shook its head. Too, it took water in its cupped paws, and drank. With one paw it gestured that I should approach, and palm open on the appendage, indicated that I might use the water. Crouching down I took a bit of water in the palm of my hand and drank. We looked at one another across the sunken basin.
The animal, on all fours, withdrew from the edge of the basin.
It projected its claws and scratched on the ruglike substance on the walls. Then, claws catching in the heavy material, it moved up the wall, stretching and twisting its body. Then it dropped down to a pole in the scaffolding. It sat there for a moment, and then, lightly, swung from one pole to another, and then returned, dropping lightly, for an animal of its weight, to the floor before the platform. It stretched again, catlike. And then it rose to its hind feet and looked down at me. It was more than eight feet in height I would have conjectured its weight at some nine hundred pounds. Then it dropped again to all fours and moved to the table on which there reposed the dark, boxlike object.
It moved a switch on the box. It uttered sounds, low, guttural, inquisitive. It did not use human phonemes and so it is difficult, if not impossible, to convey the quality of the sound. If you have heard the noises made by great cats, such as the Bengal tiger or the black-maned lion, and can conceive of such noises articulated with the subtlety and precision of g civilized speech, that will provide you with an approximation of what I heard. On the other hand, the vocal apparatus of the beast was not even of Earth origin. Certain of its sounds, for example, were more reminiscent of the snort of the boar, the snuffling of the grizzly, the hiss of the snake, than those of the large cats. The phonemes of such beasts are unmistakable, but they are, truly, like nothing Earth has prepared one to hear. They are different, not of Earth, alien. To hear these noises, and know they are a speech can be initially very frightening. Evolution did not prepare those of Earth to find intelligence in such a form.
The beast was then silent.
"Are you hungry?" I heard. The sounds, separate, had been emitted from the dark, flatish, boxlike object on the table. It was, then, a translator.
"Not particularly," I said.
After a moment a set of sounds, brief, like a growl, came from the translator. I smiled.
The beast shrugged. It shambled to the side of the room, and there pressed a switch.
A metal panel slid up. I heard a squeal and a small animal, a lart, fled from within toward the opening. It happened quickly. The large six-digited paw of the beast closed about the lart, hideously squealing, and lifted it to its mouth, where it bit through the back of its neck, spitting out vertebrae. The lart, dead, but spasmodically trembling, was then held in the beast’s mouth. It then, with its claws freed, opened its furs and, by feel, delicately, regarding me, fingered out various organs which it laid on the floor before it. In moments it had removed the animal from its mouth. Absently, removing meat from the carcass, it fed.
"You do not cook your meat?" I asked.
The translator, turned on, accepted the human phonemes, processed them, and, momentarily, produced audible, correspondent phonemes in one of the languages of the Kur.
The beast responded. I waited.
"We sometimes do," he said. It looked at me. "Cooked meat weakens the jaws," it said.
"Fire, and cooked meat," I said, "makes possible a smaller jaw and smaller teeth, permitting less cranial musculature and permitting the development of a larger brain case."
"Our brain cases are larger than those of humans," it said. "Our anatomy could not well support a larger cranial development. In our history, as in yours, larger brain cases have been selected for."
"In what way?" I asked.
"In the killings," it said.
"The Kur is not a social animal?" I asked, "It is a social animal," it said. "But it is not as social as the human."
"That is perhaps a drawback to it as a species," I said.
"It has its advantages," it said. "The Kur can live alone. It can go its own way. It does not need its herd."
"Surely, in ancient times, Kurii came together," I said.
"Yes," it said, "in the matings, and the killings." It looked at me, chewing. "But that was long ago," it said. "We have had civilization for one hundred thousand years, as you would understand these things. In the dawn of our prehistory small bands emerged from the burrows and the caves and forests. It was a beginning."
"How can such an animal have a civilizatioit?" I asked.
"Discipline," it said.
"That is a slender thread with which to restrain such fierce, titanic instincts," I said.
The beast extended to me a thigh of the lart. "True," it said. "I see you understand us well."
I took the meat and chewed on it. It was fresh, warm, still porous with blood.
"You like it, do you not?" asked the beast.
"Yes," I said.
"You see," it said, "you are not so different from us."
"I have never claimed to be," I said.
"Is not civilization as great an achievement for your species as for mine?" it asked.
"Perhaps," I said.
"Are the threads on which your survival depends stouter than those on which ours depends?" it asked.
"Perhaps not," I said.
"I know little of humans," it said, "but it is my understanding that most of them are liars and hypocrites. I do not include you in this general charge."
I nodded.
"They think of themselves as civilized animals, and yet they are only animals with a civilization. There is quite a difference."
"Admittedly," I said.
"Those of Earth, as I understand it, which is your home world, are the most despicable. They are petty. They mistake weakness for virtue. They take their lack of appetite, their incapacity to feel, as a merit. How small they are. The more they betray their own nature the more they congratulate themselves on their perfection. And they put economic gain above all. Their greed and their fevered scratching repulses me."
"Not all on Earth are like that," I said.
"It is a food world," it said, "and the food is not of the best."
"What do you put above all?" tasked.
"Glory," it said. It looked at me. "Can you understand that?" it asked.
"I can understand it," I said.
"We are soldiers," it said, "the two of us."
"How is it that an animal without strong social instincts can be concerned with glory?" I asked.
"It emerges, we speculate, from the killings."
"The killings?" I asked.
"Even before the first groups," it said, "we would gather for the matings and killings. Great circles, rings of our people, would form in valleys, to watch."
"You fought for mates?" I asked.
"We fought for the joy of killing," it said. "Mating, however, was a prerogative of the victor." It took a rib bone from the lart and began to thrust it, scraping, between its fangs, freeing and removing bits of wedged meat. "Humans, as I understand it, have two sexes, which, among them, perform all the functions pertinent to the continuance of the species.
"Yes," I said, "that is true."
"We have three, or, if you prefer, four sexes," it said. "There is the dominant, which would, I suppose, correspond most closely to the human male. It is the instinct of the dominant to enter the killings and mate. There is then a form of Kur which closely resembles the dominant but does not join in the killings or mate. You may, or may not, regard this as two sexes. There is then the egg-carrier who is impregnated. This form of Kur is smaller than the dominant or the non-dominant, speaking thusly of the nonreproducing form of Kur."
"The egg-earner is the female," I said.
"If you like," said the beast, "but, shortly after impregnation, within a moon, the egg-carrier deposits the fertilized seed in the third form of Kur, which is mouthed, but sluggish and immobile. These fasten themselves to hard surfaces, rather like dark, globular anemones. The egg develops inside the body of the blood-nurser and, some months later, it tears its way free."
"It has no mother," I said.
"Not in the human sense," it said. "It will, however, usually follow, unless it itself is a blood-nurser, which is drawn out, the first Kur it sees, providing it is either an egg-carrier or a nondominant."
"What if it sees a dominant?" I asked.
"If it is itself an egg-carrier or a nondominant, it will shun the dominant," it said. "This is not unwise, for the dominant may kill it."
"What if it itself is potentially a dominant?" I asked.
The lips of the beast drew back. "That is what all hope," it said. "If it is a dominant and it encounters a dominant, it will bare its tiny fangs and expose its claws."
"Will the dominant not kill it then?" I asked.
"Perhaps later in the killings, when it is large and strong," he said, "but certainly not when it is small. It is on such that the continuance of the species depends. You see, it must be tested in the killings."
"Are you a dominant?" I asked.
"Of course," it said. Then it added, "I shall not kill you for the question."
"I meant no harm," I said.
Its lips drew back.
"Are most Kurii dominants?" I asked.
"Most are born dominants," it said, "but most do not survive the killings."
"It seems surprising that there are many Kurii," I said.
"Not at all," he said. "The egg-carriers can be frequently impregnated and frequently deposit the fertilized egg in a blood-nurser. There are large numbers of blood-nursers. In the human species it takes several months for a female to carry and deliver an offspring. In the same amount of time a Kur egg-carrier will develop seven to eight eggs, each of which may be fertilized and deposited in a blood-nurser."
"Do Kur young not drink milk?" I asked.
"The young receive blood in the nurser," he said, "When it is born it does not need milk, but water and common protein."
"It is born fanged?" I asked.
"Of course," it said. "And it is capable of stalking and killing small animals shortly after it leaves the nurser."
"Are the nursers rational?" I asked.
"We do not think so," it said.
"Can they feel anything?" I asked.
"They doubtless have some form of sensation," it said. "They recoil when struck or burned."
"But there are native Kurii on Gor," I said, "or, at any rate, Kurii who have reproduced themselves on this world."
"Certain ships, some of them originally intended for colonization, carried representatives of our various sexes, with the exception of the nondominants," it said. "We have also, where we knew of Kurii groups, sometimes managed to bring in egg-carriers and blood-nursers."
"It is to your advantage that there be native Kurii," I said.
"Of course," he said, "yet they are seldom useful allies. They lapse too swiftly into barbarism." He lowered the bone with which he was picking his teeth and threw it, and the remains of the lart, to the side of the room. He then took a soft, white cloth from a drawer in the table on which the translator reposed, and wiped his paws. "Civilization is fragile," he said.
"Is there an order among your sexes?" I asked.
"Of course there is a biological order," he said. "Structure is a function of nature. How could it be otherwise?"
"There is first the dominant, and then the egg-carrier, and then the nondominant, and then, if one considers such things Kur, the blood-nurser."
"The female, or egg-carrier, is dominant over the non-dominant?" I asked.
"Of course," he said. ‘They are despicable."
"Suppose a dominant is victorious in the killings," I said. "Then what occurs?"
"Many things could occur," he said, "but he then, generally, with a club, would indicate what egg-carriers he desires. He then ties them together and drives them to his cave. In the cave he impregnates them and makes them serve him."
"Do they attempt to run away?" I asked.
"No," he said. "He would hunt them down and kill them. But after he has impregnated them they tend to remain, even when untied, for he is then their dominant."
"What of the nondominants?" I asked.
"They remain outside the cave until the dominant is finished, fearing him muchly. When he has left the cave they creep within, bringing meat and gifts to the females, that they may be permitted to remain within the cave, as part of the dominant’s household. They serve under the females and take their orders from them. Most work, including the care of the young, is performed by nondominants."
"I do net think I would care to be a nondominant," I said.
"They are totally despicable," he said, "but yet, oddly, sometimes a nondominant becomes a dominant. This is a hard thing to understand. Sometimes it happens when there is no dominant in the vicinity. Sometimes it seems to happen for no obvious reason; sometimes It happens when a nondominant is humiliated and worked beyond his level of tolerance. It is interesting. This occasional, almost inexplicable transformation of a nondominant into a dominant is the reason our biologists differ as to whether our species has three, or four sexes."
"Perhaps the nondominant is only a latent dominant," I said.
"Perhaps," he said. "It is hard to tell."
"The restriction of mating to the dominants," I said, "plus the selections in the killings, must tend to produce a species unusually aggressive and savage."
"It tends also to produce one that is extremely intelligent," said the animal.
I nodded.
"But we are civilized folk," said the animal. It rose to Its feet and went to a cabinet. "You must not think of us in terms of our bloody past."
"Then, on the steel ships," I said, "the killings, and the fierce matings, no longer take place."
The animal, at the opened cabinet, turned to regard me. "I did not say that," he said.
"The killings and the matings then continue to take place on the steel worlds?" I asked.
"Of course," he said.
"The past, then, is still with you on the steel worlds," I said.
"Yes," it said. "Is the past not always with us?"
"Perhaps," I said.
The beast returned from the cabinet with two glasses and a bottle.
"Is that not the paga of Ar?" I asked.
"Is it not one of your favorites?" he asked, "See," he said, "It has the seal of the brewer, Temus."
"That is remarkable," I said. "You are very thoughtful."
"I have been saving it," he told me.
"For me?" I asked.
"Of course," he said. "I was confident you would get through.’
"I am honored," I said.
"I have waited so long to talk to you," he said.
He poured two glasses of paga, and reclosed the bottle. We lifted the glasses, and touched them, the one to the other.
"To our war," he said.
"To our war," I said.
We drank.
"I cannot even pronounce your name," I said.
"It will be sufficient," he said, "to call me Zarendargar, which can be pronounced by human beings, or, if you like, even more simply, Half-Ear."
Beasts of Gor pages 364-370

In the doorway, silhouetted against flames behind them we saw great, black, shaggy figures Then one leapt within the hall. In one hand it carried a gigantic ax, whose handle was perhaps eight feet long, whose blade, from tip to tip, might have been better than two feet in length; on its other arm it carried a great, round, iron shield, double strapped; it lifted it, and the ax; its arms were incredibly long, perhaps some seven feet in length; about its left arm was a spiral band of gold; it was the Kur which had addressed the assembly. It threw back its head and opened its jaws, eyes blazing, and uttered the blood roar of the aroused Kur; then it bent over, regarding us, shoulders hunched, its claws leaping from its soft, furred sheaths; it then laid its ears back flat against the sides of its great head. no one could move. then, other Kurri behind it, crowding about it, past it, it shrieked, lips drawn back, with a hideous sound, which, somehow, from its lips and mien, and mostly from its eyes, I took to be a sign of pleasure, of anticipation; I would learn later that this sound is instinctively uttered by Kurii when they are preparing to take blood.
Marauders of Gor, Page 203

It moved a switch on the box. It uttered sounds, low, guttural, inquisitive. It did not use human phonemes and so it is difficult, if not impossible, to convey the quality of the sound. If you have heard the noises made by great cats, such as the Bengal tiger or the black maned lion, and can conceive such noises articulated with subtlety and precision of a civilized speech, that will provide you with an approximation of what I heard. ~ "Our brain cases are larger then yours," it said. "Our anatomy could not well support a larger cranial development. In our history, as in your, larger brain cases have been selected for." "In what way?" I asked. "In the killings." It said. "Is the Kur a social animal?" I asked. "It is a social animal," it said," But it is not as social as the human." "that is perhaps a drawback to it as a species," I said. "It has its advantages," it said. " the Kur can live alone. It can go its own way. It does not need its herd." "Surly in ancient times, Kurri came together," I said. "Yes" it said. "in the matings, and the killings," It looked at me , chewing." But that was long ago," it said." We have had civilization for one hundred thousand years, as you would understand these things. In the dawn of our prehistory small bands emerged from the burrows and the caves and forests. It was a beginning." ~ "What do you put above all?" I asked. "Glory," it said. It looked at me. "can you understand that?" it asked. ~ "How is it that an animal without strong social instincts can be concerned with Glory ?" I asked. "It emerges, we speculate, from the killings." "the killings?" I asked. "Even before the first groups," he said, "we would gather for the matings and killings. Great circles, rings of our people, would form in valleys to watch." "You fought for mates?" I asked. "We fought for the joy of killing," it said, " Mating, however, was a prerogative of the victor." It took a rib bone from the lart and began to thrust it, scraping, between his fangs, freeing and removing bits of wedged meat. "Humans, as I understand it, perform all the functions pertinent to the continuance of the species." "Yes," I said, "that is true." "We have three, or, if you prefer, four sexes," it said. "There is the dominant, which would, I suppose, correspond most closely to the human male. It is the instinct of the dominant to enter the killings and mate. there is then the form of the Kur which closely resembles the dominant but does not join in the killings or mate. You may , or may not, regard this as two sexes. There is then the egg carrier who is impregnated. This form of Kur is smaller then the dominant or the non dominant, speaking thusly of the non reproducing form of Kur." "the egg carrier is the female." I said. "If you like" said the beast. "But shortly after the impregnation, within a moon, the egg carrier deposits the fertilized seed in the third form of Kur, which is mouthed, but sluggish and immobile. those fasten themselves to hard surfaces, rather like dark, globular anemones. the egg develops inside the body of the blood nurser and, some months later, it tears its way free." "It has no mother." I said. "Not in the human sense." It said. "It will however, usually follow, unless it itself is a blood nurser, which is drawn out, the first Kur it sees, providing it is either and egg carrier or a non dominant." ~ "the young receive blood in the nurser," he said. "When it is born it does not need milk, but water and common protein." "It is born fanged?" I asked. "Of course," it said. "And it is capable of stalking and killing small animals shortly after it leaves the blood nurser." ~ "But there are native Kurrii on Gor," I said, " or at any rate Kurrii who have reproduced themselves on this world." "Certain ships, some of them originally intended for colonization, carried representatives of our various sexes, with the exception of non dominants," it said "We have also, where we have known of Kurrii groups, sometimes managed to bring in egg carriers and blood nursers." ~ "Is there an order to your sexes?" I asked. "Of course there is a biological order," He said, "Structure is a function of nature. How could it be otherwise? There is first the Dominant, and then the egg carrier, and then the non dominant, and then , if one considers such things Kur, the blood nursers." "the female, or egg carrier, is dominant over the non dominant?" I asked. "Of course," he said." They are despicable." "Suppose a dominant is victorious in the killings?" I said, "What then occurs?" "Many things could occur," He said, " but he then, generally, with a club, would indicate what egg carriers he desires. He then ties them together and drives them to his cave. In the cave he impregnates them and makes them serve him." "Do they attempt to run away?" I asked. "No," he said, " He would hunt them down and kill them. But after he has impregnated them they tend to remain, even when untied, for he is then their dominant."
Explorers of Gor, pgs369-370

Incidentally, there are many brands on gor. Two that almost never occur on Gor, by the way, are those of the moons and the collar, and of the chain and the claw. The first of these commonly occurs in certain of the Gorean enclaves on Earth, which serves as headquarters for agents of the priest kings, the second tends to occur in the lairs of the Kurri agents on earth; ~the chain and claw brand, signifies, of course, slavery and subjection within the compass of the Kur yoke.
Explorers of Gor, pg12