Kurii

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

General Information

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Quotes

My thanks to Cyruss the Rencer for permission to use His hard work and dedication to Kurii provided below. Quotes are from Marauders unless otherwise stated and comments are those of Cyruss.

"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.

The tarn had flown northwest. It would, presumably, follow the coast north, perhaps above the forests, perhaps to the bleak coasts of forbidding Torvaldsland itself.

"Do you surmise, Samos," I asked, "that the beast killed for hunger?"

"Speak," said Samos to the rencer.

"The beast," he said, "had been seen earlier, twice, on abandoned, half rotted rence islands, lurking."

"Did it feed?" I asked.

"Not on those of the marshes," said the man.

"It had opportunity?" I asked.

"As much or more as when it made its strike," said the man.

"The beast struck once, and once only?" I asked.

"Yes," said the man. "Samos?" I asked.

"The strike," said Samos, "seems deliberate. Who else in the marshes wore a golden armlet?"

"But why?" I asked. "Why?"

Marauders of Gor, pg. 21

This quote is an interesting quote found early on in the reading of Maurauders. To me, this quote shows that Kurii could go from various places, from the far north, to even down as far as the Marshes, as well as make it in through the marshes without being harmed. It also shows that, Kurii, do not always kill just because they can. They have meanings behind their killing. Such as killing the Rencer Girl who wore the Golden Armlet. The meaning though, seems to baffle most gorean men.

"I want passage to Torvaldsland," I said. "I hunt beast." "Kurii?" he asked. "Yes," I said. "You are mad," he said.

Marauders of Gor, pg.

To Me, this quote means that some people dared to hunt down kurii, In this case, He did so alone and was trying to get passage to Torvaldsland aboard a ship. It appears as though, To hunt a Kur, is not a wise thing to do.

I tore a piece of meat from what Ivar had thrown me and held it to Thyri. She smiled at me. She was trying to learn how to please a man. "Thank you, my Jarl," she said. She took the meat, delicately, in her teeth. I grinned, and she looked down, frightened. She knew that soon she might be taught, truly, how to please men.

"You are rich," I said, "and have many men. Surely you could have a hall of wood, if you wished."

"Why did you come to Torvaldsland?" suddenly asked Ivar Forkbeard.

"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 PriestKings 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 orders 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 harry 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. I drank more of the mead. I ate, too, of the roast tarsk.

Marauders of Gor, pgs. 91-93

This quote alone speaks volumes about the Kurii. This quote shows that they are not from Gor. But rather, aliens. Most of the Kurii on Gor, are there, from having survived their ships crashing on Gor. This quote shows that the Kurii are far smarter then men of Gor, they are like intalectual equals to the Priest Kings. This also shows that they stay primarily to the north. They feast on men often. Meaning they certainly are not scared of the men. Not even the giants of Men from Torvaldsland.

We looked down at the remains of a bosk, torn apart eaten through. Even large bones had been broken, snapped apparently in mighty jaws, the marrow sucked from them. 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. Marauders of Gor, pg. 107 This quote, gives you a feel of how brutal they can be. It is not enough to just kill the animal sufficiently, but they destroy the carcass, they do not just eat the meat, but they also eat the brains, and even take the time to suck the marrow from the bones. It also shows you that it is not easy to track down a Kur.

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.

Marauders of Gor, pg. 108

This quote is in referrence to a pack of Kurii possibly driving a particular kur out of their Den, or their cave, because Kurii do not tollerate weakness. This also leads You to believe, it is common for Kurii to live together in groups.

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; bondmaids 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 bondmaids, the movements of their chains. Their ankles were held by their fetters. "Weapons!" cried the Forkbeard. "Kur! Kur!" I heard men cry. The beast stood there, blinking, bent over the body. It was unwilling to surrender it. Its fur 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 twonostrils, 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 torchlight, 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 forward, over the couch half falling across the body of a hysterical bondmaid. 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 bondmaids 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 much 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 excellent vision. If it had been you it sought, it would have been you it killed."

"Why did it enter the hall?" I asked.

"Kurii," 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 fight?" 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, pgs. 108-110

This quote is almost overwelming with information on the Kurii. It gives an excellent and detailed description of the Kurii. It also shows that, Kurii, can be killed just as a man can from deadly blows. It shows also, that Men, and Kurii, some at least, can interact with speech, without the use of translators. As well it shows, that this kur, was a rather small kur, only 7 feet tall. It goes on to say, that Kurii, are generally larger than that one. This quote is very, very rich in information as to the Kurii.

I heard, too, the intake of breath of the Forkbeard, and of Gorm, and the oarsmen. Another shape emerged from the darkness of the ship. It moved swiftly, with an agility startling in so huge a bulk. I heard the scrape of claws on the gangplank. It was humped, shaggy. It followed Thorgard of Scagnar. After it, then, came his men, timidly, those who had met Thorgard and those, too, from the ship. A wharf crew then busied themselves about the ship.

The Forkbeard looked at me. He was puzzled. "One of the Kurii," he said.

It was true. But the beast we had seen was not an isolated, degenerate, diseased beast, of the sort we had encountered at Forkbeards Landfall. It had seemed in its full health, swift and powerful.

Marauders of Gor, pg. 120

This quote shows that Kurii can be allies to men, if it should appeal to them. This is shown as well in the previous quote. The kur in that post was isolated, a degenerate (or a young kur) and diseased. This one however, seemed to be at full health and quite deadly.

I was certain that the Kur which I sought would know me, and well.

I did not know it, but I did not think that would make much difference.

It was my intention to hunt openly, and, I expected, understood, my quary, hunting, too, would find me, and, together, we would do war.

It had doubtless been its plan to lure me to the north. I smiled. Surely its plan had been successful.

I looked at the holding of Thorgard of Scagnar. If the Kur within it were he whom I sought, I had little doubt but that we should later meet.

Marauders of Gor, pg. 121

This quote, seems to show that He is just a tad bit full of Himself *LOL* In My opinion at least. He expects the Kur to know who He is. And then He expects to do battle with it. This could be bravery, or stupidity, then again, the only difference between bravery and stupidity, is timing. This shows as well that the Kur knows that He is tracking it, and is luring Him up into the great north, to do battle on his own terrain.

It stood on the small hill, sloping above the assembly field. This hill was set with stones, rather in the manner of terraces. On these stones, set in semicircular lines, like terraces, stood high men and minor jarls, and rune priests, and the guard of Svein Blue Tooth. Just below the top of the small hill, cut into the hill, there was a level, stone paved platform, some twelve feet by twelve feet in dimension.

On this platform stood Svein Blue Tooth, with two high men, officers, lieutenants, to the jarl.

The thing, its head lifted, surveyed the assembly of free men. The pupils of its eyes, in the sunlight, were extremely small and black. They were like points in the yellowish green cornea. I knew that, in darkness, they could swell, like dark moons, to fill almost the entire optic orifice, some three or four inches in width. Evolution, on some distant, perhaps vanished world, had adapted this life form for both diurnial and nocturnal hunting. Doubtless, like the cat, it hunted when hungry, and its efficient visual capacities, like those of the cats, meant that there was no time of the day or night when it might not be feared. Its head was approximately the width of the chest of a large man. It had a flat snout, with wide nostrils. Its ears were large, and pointed. They lifted from the side of its head, listening, and then lay back against the furred sides of the head. Kurii, I had been told, usually, in meeting men, laid the ears back against the sides of their heads, to increase their resemblance to humans. The ears are often laid back, also, incidentally, in hostility or anger, and, always, in its attacks. It is apparently physiologically impossible for a Kur to attack without its shoulders hunching, its claws emerging, and its ears lying back against the head. The nostrils of the beast drank in what information it wished, as they, like its eyes, surveyed the throng. The trailing capacities of the Kurii are not as superb as those of the sleen, but they were reputed to be the equal of those of larls. The hearing, similarly, is acute. Again it is equated with that of the larl, and not the sharply sensed sleen. There was little doubt that the day vision of the Kurii was equivalent to that of men, if not superior, and the night vision, of course, was infinitely superior; their sense of smell, too, of course, was inccmparably superior to that of men, and their sense of hearing as well. Moreover, they, like men, were rational. Like men, they were a single brained organism, limited by a spinal column. Their intelligence, by Priest Kings, though the brain was much larger, was rated as equivalent to that of men, and showed similar random distributions throughout gene pools. What made them such dreaded foes was not so much their intelligence or, on the steel worlds, their technological capacities, as their aggressiveness, their persistence their emotional commitments, their need to populate and expand, their innate savagery. The beast was approximalely nine feet in height; I conjectured its weight in the neighborhood of eight or nine hundred pounds. Interestingly, Priest Kings, who are not visually oriented organisms, find little difference between Kurii and men. To me this seems preposterous, for ones so wise as Priest Kings, but, in spite of its obvious falsity, Priest Kings regard the Kurii and men as rather similar, almost equivalent species. One difference they do remark between the human and the Kur, and that is that the human, commonly, has an inhibition against killing. This inhibition the Kur lacks.

"Fellow rational creatures!" called the Kur. It was difficult at first to understand it. It was horrifying, too. Suppose that, at some zoo, the tiger, in its cage, should look at you, and, in its rumbles, its snarls, its growls, its half roars, you should be able, to your horror, to detect crude approximatlons of the phonemes of your native tongue, and you should hear it speaking to you, looking at you, uttering intelligible sentences. I shuddered.

"Fellow rational creatures!" called the Kur.

The Kur has two rows of fangs. Its mouth is large enough to take into it the head of a full grown man. Its canines, in the front row of fangs, top and bottom, are long. When it closes its mouth the upper two canines project over the lower lip and jaw. Its tongue is long and dark, the interior of its mouth reddish.

"Men of Torvaldsland," it called, "I speak to you."

Behind the Kur, to one side, stood two other Kurii. They, like the first, were fearsome creatures. Each carried a wide, round shield, of iron, some four feet in diameter. Each, too, carried a great, double bladed iron ax, which, from blade tip to blade tip, was some two feet in width. The handle of the ax was of carved, green needle wood, round, some four inches in diameter. The axes were some seven or eight feet in height. The speaker was not armed, save by the natural ferocity of his species. As he spoke, his claws were retracted. About his left arm, which was some seven feet in length, was a spiral golden armlet. It was his only adornment. The two Kurii behind him, each, had a golden pendant hanging from the bottom of each ear. The prehensile paws, or hands, of the Kurii are six digited and multiple jointed. The legs are thick and short. In spite of the shortness of the legs the Kur can, when it wishes, by utilizing its upper appendages, in the manner of a prairie simian, like the baboon, move with great rapidity. It becomes, in running, what is, in effect, a four footed animal. It has the erect posture, permitting brain development and facilitating acute binocular vision, of a biped. This posture, too, of course, greatly increases the scanning range of the visual sensors. But, too, its anatomy permits it to function, in flight and attack, much as a four legged beast. For short distances it can outrun a full-grown tarsk. It is also said to possess great stamina, but of this I am much less certain. Few animals, which have not been trained, have, or need, stamina. An exception would be pack hunters, like the wolves or hunting dogs of Earth.

"We come in peace," said the Kur.

The men of Torvaldsland, in the assembly field, looked to one another.

"Let us kill them," I heard one whisper to another.

"In the north, in the snows," said the Kur, " is a gathering of my kind."

The men stirred uneasily. I listened intently.

I knew that Kurii did not, for the most part, inhabit areas frequented by men. On the other hand, the Kurii on the platform, and other Kurii I had encountered, had been darkfurred, either brownish, or brownish red or black. I wondered if it were only the darker furred Kurii that roamed southward. But if these Kurii on the platform were snowadapted, their fur did not suggest this. I wondered if they might be from the steel ships, either recently, or within too few generations for a snow adaption pattern to have been developed. If the Kurii were sufficiently successful, of course, there would be no particular likelihood of evolution selecting for snow adaption. Too, it could be that, in summer, the Kurii shed white fur and developed, in effect, a summer coat. Still I regarded it unlikely that these Kurii were from as far north as his words might suggest.

"How many gather?" asked Svein Blue Tooth, who was on the platform with the Kurii.

Blue Tooth was a large man, bearded, wlth a broad, heavy face. He had blue eyes, and was blond haired. His hair came to his shoulders. There was a knife scar under his left eye. He seemed a shrewd, highly intelligent, competent, avaricious man. I thought him probably an effective jarl. He wore a collar of fur, dyed scarlet, and a long cloak, over the left shoulder, of purple dyed fur of the sea sleen. He wore beneath his cloak yellow wool, and a great belt of glistening black, with a gold buckle, to which was attached a scabbard of oiled, black leather; in this scabbard was a sword, a sword of Torvaldsland, a long sword, with a jeweled pommel, with double guard.

"We come in peace," said the Kur.

"How many gather?" pressed Blue Tooth.

About his neck, from a fine, golden chain, pierced, hung the tooth of a Hunjer whale, dyed blue.

"As many as the stones of the beaches," said the Kur, "as many as the needles on the needle trees."

"What do you want?" called one of the men from the field.

"We come in peace," said the Kur.

"They do not have white fur," said I to Ivar Forkbeard, standing now beside me. "It is not likely that they come from the country of snows."

"Of course not," said the Forkbeard.

"Should this information not be brought to the attention of Svein Blue Tooth?" I asked.

"Blue Tooth is no fool," said the Forkbeard. "There is not a man here who believes Kurii to gather in the country of snows. There is not enough game to support many in such a place."

"Then how far would they be away?" I asked.

"It is not known," said the Forkbeard.

"You know us, unfortunately," said the Kur, to the assembly, "only by our outcasts, wretches driven from our caves, unfit for the gentilities of civilization, by our diseased and our misfits and our insane, by those who, in spite of our efforts and our kindness, did not manage to learn our ways of peace and harmony."

The men of Torvaldsland seemed stunned.

I looked at the great axes in the hands of the two Kurii who accompanied the speaker.

"Too often have we met in war and killing," said the speaker. "But, in this, you, too, are much to blame. You have cruelly, and without compunction, hunted us and, when we sought comradeship with you as brothers, as fellow rational creaturs, you have sought to slay us."

"Kill them," muttered more than one man. "They are Kurii."

"Even now," said the Kur, the skin drawing back from its fangs, "there are those among you who wish our death, who urge our destruction."

The men were silent. The Kur had heard and understood their speech, though he stood far from us, and above us, on the platform of the assembly, that platform cut into the small, sloping hill over the assembly field. I admired the acuteness of its hearing.

Again the skin drew back from its fangs. I wondered if this were an attempt to simulate a human smile. "It is in friendship that we come." It looked about. "We are a simple, peaceful folk," it said, "interested in the pursuit of agriculture."

Svein Blue Tooth threw back his head and roared with laughter. I regarded him then as a brave man. Beside me, Ivar Forkbeard, too, laughed, and then others.

I wondered if the stomach or stomachs of the Kurii could digest vegetable food.

The assembly broke into laughter. It filled the field.

The Kur did not seem angry at the laughter. I wondered if it understood laughter. To the Kur it might be only a human noise, as meaningless to him as the cries of whales to us.

"You are amused," it said.

The Kurii, then, had some understanding of laugher. Its own lips then drew back, revealing the fangs. I then understood this clearly as a smile.

Svein Blue Tooth threw back his head and roared with laughter. I regarded him then as a brave man. Beside me, Ivar Forkbeard, too, laughed, and then others.

I wondered if the stomach or stomachs of the Kurii could digest vegetable food.

The assembly broke into laughter. It filled the field.

The Kur did not seem angry at the laughter. I wondered if it understood laughter. To the Kur it might be only a human noise, as meaningless to him as the cries of whales to us.

"You are amused," it said.

The Kurii, then, had some understanding of laugher. Its own lips then drew back, revealing the fangs. I then understood this clearly as a smile.

That the Kurii possessed a sense of humor did not much reassure me as to their nature. I wondered rather at what sort of situations it would take as its object. The cat, if rational, might find amusement in the twitching and trembling of the mouse which it is destroying, particle by particle. That a species laughs bespeaks its intelligence, its capacity to reason, not its goodness, not its hamlessness. Like a knife; reason is innocent; like a knife, its application is a function of the hand that grasps it, the energies and will which drive it.

"We were not always simple farmers," said the Kur. It opened its mouth, that horrid orifice, lined with its double rows of white, heavy, curved fangs. "No," it said, "once we were hunters, and our bodies still bear, as reminders, the stains of our cruel past." It dropped its head. "We are by these," it said, and then it lifted its right paw, suddenly exposing the claws, "and these, reminded that we must be resolute in our attempts to overcome a sometimes recalcitrant nature." Then it regarded the assembly. "But you must not hold our past against us. What is important is the present. What is important is not what we were, but what we are, what we are striving to become. We now wish only to be simple farmers, tilling the soil and leading lives of rustic tranquility."

The men of Torvaldsland looked at one another.

"How many of you have gathered?" asked Svein Blue Tooth again.

"As many," said the Kur, "as the stones on the beaches, as many as the needles on the needle trees."

"What do you want?" he asked.

The Kur turned to the assembly. "It is our wish to traverse your country in a march southward.

"It would be madness," said the Forkbeard to me, "to permit large numbers of Kurii into our lands."

"We seek empty lands to the south, to farm," said the Kur. "We will take only as much of your land as the width of our march, and for only as long as it takes to pass."

"Your request seems reasonable," said Svein Blue Tooth. "We shall deliberate.

The Kur stepped back with the other Kurii. They spoke together in one of the languages of the Kurii, for there are, I understood, in the steel worlds, nations and races of such beasts. I could hear little of what they said. I could detect, however, that it more resembled the snarls and growling of larls than the converse of rational creatures.

"What crop," asked Ivar Forkbeard, who wore a hood, of the platform, "do the Kurii most favor in their agricultural pursuits?"

I saw the ears of the Kur lie swiftly back against its head. Then it relaxed. Its lips drew back from its fangs. "SaTarna," it said.

The men in the field grunted their understanding. This was the staple crop in Torvaldsland. It was a likely answer.

Ivar then spoke swiftly to one of his men.

"What will you pay us to cross our land?" asked one of the free men of Torvaldsland.

"Let us negotiate such fees," said the beast, "when such negotiations are apt."

It then stepped back.

Various free men then rose to address the assembly. Some spoke for granting the permission to the Kurii for their march, many against it.

Finally, it was decided that it was indeed germane to the decision to understand what the Kurii would offer to obtain this permission.

I, in this time, now came to understand that Torvaldsland stood, in effect, as a wall between the Kurii and the more southern regions of Gor. The Kur, moreover, tends to be an inveterate land animal. They neither swim well nor enjoy the water. They are uneasy on ships. Moreover, they knew little of the craftsmanship of building a seaworthy ship. That now, suddenly, large numbers of Kurii were conjoined, and intent upon a march southward could not be a coincidence in the wars of such beasts with Priest Kings. I supposed it quite probable this was, in effect, a probe, and yet one within the laws of the Priest Kings. It was Gorean Kurii that were clearly, substantially, involved. They carried primitive weapons. They did not even use a translator. In the laws of Priest Kings it was up to such species, those of Kurii and men, to resolve their differences in their own way. I had little doubt but what the Kurii, perhaps organized by Kurii trom the steel worlds, were to begin a march in Torvaldsland, which might extend, in a generation to the southern pole of Gor. The Kurii were now ready to reveal themselves. At last they were ready to march. If they were successful, I had little doubt that the invasion from space, in its full power, would follow. In their mercy or disinterest, Priest Kings had spared many Kurii who had been shipwrecked, or shot down, or marooned on Gor. These beasts, over the centuries grown numerous and strong, might now be directed by the Kurii of the steel worlds. Doubtless they had been in contact with them. I expected the speaker himself was of the steel ships painfully taught Gorean. The Kurii native to Gor, or which had been permitted to survive and settle on Gor, would surely not be likely to have this facility. They and men seldom met, save to kill one another.

The Kurii, I gathered, did not wish to fight their way to more fertile lands south, but to reach them easily, thus conserving their numbers and, in effect, cutting Torvaldsland from the south. There was little to be gained by fighting an action the length of Torvaldsland, and little to be lost by not doing so, which could not be later recouped when power in the south had been consolidated. I had strong doubts, of course, as to whether a Kur invasion of the south was practical, unless abetted by the strikes of Kur ships from the steel worlds. The point of the probe, indeed, might be to push Kur power as far south as possible, and, perhaps, too, for the first time, result in the engagement of the forces of Priest Kings to turn them back. This would permit an assessment of the power of Priest Kings, the extent and nature of which was largely unknown to the Kurii, and, perhaps, to lure them into exposing themselves in such a way that a space raid might be successfully launched. All in all, I expected the invasion of the south was, at this point, primarily a probe. If it was successful, the Priest Kings, to preserve men on the planet might be forced to intervene, thus breaking their own laws. If the PriestKings did not do this, perhaps for reasons of pride, their laws having been given, then, in effect, Gor might become a Kur world, in which, given local allies, the PriestKings might finally be isolated and destroyed. This was, to my knowledge, the boldest and most dangerous move of the Others, the Kurii, to this date. It utilized large forces on Gor itself, largely native Kurii in its schemes. Kurii from the ships, of course, as organizers, as officers, might be among them. And doubtless there would be communication with the ships, somehow. This march might be the first step in an invasion, to culminate with the beaching of silver ships, in their thousands, raiders from the stars, on the shores of Gor.

It was possible, of course, that the Kurii would attack Torvaldsland when well within it, without large forces marshaled against them. Once within the country, before an army could be massed against them, they might cut it to pieces, farm by farm.

It was possible, too, of course, that the Kurii had become gentle beasts, fond of farming, renouncing their warlike ways, and turning humbly to the soil, and the labors of the earth, setting perhaps therein an excellent example for the still halfsavage human animals of Gor, so predatory, so savage, so much concerned with wars, and their codes and honor. Perhaps we could learn much from the Kurii. Perhaps we could learn from them not to be men, but a more benign animal, more content, more bovine; perhaps they could teach us, having overcome their proud, restless natures, to become, too, a gentler, sweeter form of being, a more pleasant, a softer, a happier animal. Perhaps, together with them, tilling the soil, we could construct a more placid world, a world in which discipline and courage, and curiosity and adventure, and doing what pleases one, would become no more than the neglected, scorned, half forgotten anachronisms of remote barbarians. We would then have overcome our manhood, and become one with the snails, the Kurii and the flowers.

"What will you pay," asked Svein Blue Tooth, "for permission to traverse our land, should that permission be granted?"

"We will take little or nothing," said the Kur, "and so must be asked to pay nothing."

There was an angry murmur from the men in the field.

"But," said the Kur, "as there are many of us, we will need provisions, which we will expect you to furnish."

"That we will furnish you?" asked Svein Blue Tooth. I saw spear points lifted among the crowd.

"We will require," said the Kur, "for each day of the march, as provisions, a hundred verr, a hundred tarsk, a hundred bosk, one hundred healthy property females, of the sort you refer to as bondmaids."

"As provisions?" asked the Blue Tooth, puzzled.

Among the Kurii, in their various languages, were words referring to edible meat, food. These general terms, in their scope, included human beings. These terms were sometimes best translated as; meat animal and sometimes or, sometimes, simply food. The human being was regarded, by Kurii, as falling within the scope of application of such terms. The term translated cattle was sometimes qualified to discriminate between four legged cattle and two legged cattle, of which the Kurii were familiar with two varieties, the bounding Hurt and the human.

"Yes," said the Kur.

Svein Blue Tooth laughed.

The Kur, this time, did not seem amused. "We do not ask for any of your precious free females," it said.

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

"We have better uses for our bondmaids," said Svein Blue Tooth, "than to feed them to Kurii."

There was great laughter in the field.

I knew, however, that if such a levy was agreed upon, the girls would be simply chained and, like the cattle they would be given to the Kurii march camps. Female slaves are at the mercy of their masters, completely.

But I did not expect men of Torvaldsland to give up female slaves. They were too desirable. They would elect to keep them for themselves.

"We will require, too," said the Kur, "one thousand male slaves, as porters, to be used, too, in their turn, as provisions."

"And if all this be granted to you," asked Svein Blue Tooth, "what will you grant us in return?"

"Your lives," said the Kur.

There was much angry shouting. The blood of the men of Torvaldsland began to rage. They were free men, and free men of Gor.

Weapons were brandished.

"Consider carefully your answer, my friends," said the Kur. "In all, our requests are reasonable."

He seemed puzzled at the hostility of the men. He had apparently regarded his terms as generous.

And I supposed that to one of the Kurii, they had indeed been generous. Would we have offered as much to a herd of cattle that might stand between us and a desired destination?

I saw then the man of Ivar Forkbeard, whom he had earlier sent from his side, climbing to the platform. He carried a wooden bucket, and another object, wrapped in leather. He conferred with Svein Blue Tooth, and the Blue Tooth smiled.

"I have here," called Svein Blue Tooth, "a bucket of SaTarna grain. This, in token of hospitality, I offer to our guest."

The Kur looked into the bucket, at the yellow grain. I saw the claws on the right paw briefly expose themselves, then, swiftly, draw within the softness of the furred, multiple digited appendage.

"I thank the great Jarl," said the beast, "and fine grain it is. It will be our hope to have such good fortune with our own crops in the south. But I must decline to taste your gift for we, like men, and unlike bosk, do not feed on raw grain."

The Jarl, then, took, from the hands of Ivar Forkbeard's man, the leather-wrapped object. It was a round, flat, six-sectioned loaf of SaTarna bread.

The Kur looked at it. I could not read his expression.

"Feed," invited Svein Blue Tooth. The Kur reached out and took the loaf.

"I shall take this to my camp," it said, "as a token of the good will of the men of Torvaldsland."

"Feed," invited Svein Blue Tooth.

The two Kurii behind the speaker growled, soft, like irritated larls.

It made the hair on my neck rise to hear them, for I knew they had spoken to one another.

The Kur looked upon the loaf, as we might have looked on grass, or wood, or the shell of a turtle.

Then, slowly, he put it in his mouth. Scarcely had he swallowed it than he howled with nausea, and cast it up.

I knew then that this Kur, if not all, was carnivorous.

It then stood on the platform, its shoulders hunched; I saw the claws expose themselves; the ears were back flat against its head; its eyes blazed.

A spear came too close to it. It seized it, ripping it from the man, and, with a single snap of its teeth, bit the shaft in two, snapping it like I might have broken a dried twig. Then it lifted its head and, fangs wild, like a maddened larl, roared in fury. I think there was not a man in the field who was not, for that instant, frozen in terror. The roar of the beast must have carried even to the ships.

"Do we, free men of Torvaldsland," called out Svein Blue Tooth, "grant permission to the Kurii to traverse our land?"

"No!" cried one man.

"No," cried others.

Then the entire field was aflame with the shouts of angry men.

"A thousand of you can die beneath the claws of a single Kur!" cried the Kur.

There were more angry shouting, brandishing of weapons. The speaker, the Kur, with the golden spiral bracelet, turned angrily away. He was followed by the two others.

"Fall back!" cried out Svein Blue Tooth. "The peace of the thing is upon them!"

Men fell back, and, between them, shambling, swiftly moved the three Kurs.

"We are done with them," said Ivar Forkbeard.

"Tomorrow," called Svein Blue Tooth, "we will award the talmits for excellence in the contests." He laughed. "And tomorrow night we shall feast!"

There was much cheering, much brandishing of weapons.

"I have won six talmits," Ivar Forkbeard reminded me.

"Will you dare to claim them?" I asked.

He looked at me, as though I might be mad. "Of course," said he, "I have won them."

In leaving the thing field I saw, in the distance, a high, snowcapped mountain, steep, sharp, almost like the blade of a bent spear.

I had seen it at various times, but never so clearly as from the thing field. I suppose the thing field might, partly, have been selected for the aspect of this mountain. It was a remarkable peak.

"What mountain is that?" I asked.

"It is the Torvaldsberg," said Ivar Forkbeard.

"The Torvaldsberg?" I asked.

"In the legends, it is said that Torvald sleeps in the mountain," smiled Ivar Forkbeard, "to awaken when, once more, he is needed in Torvaldsland."

Then he put his arm about my shoulder. "Come to my camp," said he. "You must still learn to break the Jarl's Ax gambit."

I smiled. Not yet had I mastered a defense against this powerful gambit of the north.

Chapter 11-The Torvaldsberg, Book 9, Marauders of Gor by John Norman, pgs 169-180

Whew! This is the longest quote I shall put on this page. This is an entire chapter from Maurauders of Gor. This chapter speaks volumes about the Kurii, how they are, their plots to take over Gor, their history and other physical traits about them. As well as how some of them interacted with Gorean Men. This is perhaps the most significant quote upon this page.

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 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 hand slipped in the dirt, in blood. I was knocked again, but 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 fell 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 of the hall. 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 not 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. The the Kur's jaws closed. For the least instant there was a terrifying recognition in the eyes. Then he was bitten through.

I briefly saw Ivar Forkbeard. He was trying to thrust Hilda, held by the arm, toward one of the side rooms, between killing Kurii. He was shouting orders to his men, who clustered about him. Svein Blue Tooth stood on the long table, behind which was his high seat. I could not hear him in the shouting, the screams, the howling of the frenzied Kurii.

A great Kur ax swept near me. Four men, trying to back away, but held as though against a wall by the throng, were cut down. Those nearest the Kurii tried to crawl back within the throng. The Kurii axes, in their sweeps, at the edges of the throng, kept us helpless, crowded together.

Few men could as much as draw their weapons.

Some men, behind Kurii, fled away, out of the great, opened, double doors of the hall. I saw them fleeing, outlined briefly against the fires outside. But outside, too, I saw, silhouetted against the flames, waiting Kurii. Many fled into the axes of the Kurii in the yard of the hall. Then Kurii stood before the threshold, snarling, axes lifted. Men came before them and threw themselves to their knees, that they might be spared, even were it but for the Ahn, but these, like others, no differences drawn between them, were cut down, destroyed by strokes of the swift axes. Kurii take prisoners only when it pleases them. I saw several of the Forkbeard's men manage to slip into one of the side rooms. Gorm, and Ottar, were among them.

I hoped they might make good their escape. Perhaps they could tear out the membrane in one of the windows and crawl through and, in the confusion outside, make away.

The Forkbeard, to my surprise, momentarily reappeared from within the room, looking about. His face looked red in the fires. He carried his sword.

I did not see Hilda. I assumed she had, with the men, entered the small room. It was my hope that she, and the others, could manage to slip away somehow, perhaps climbing to the catwalk, and dropping over the side of the palisade to the ground below.

I saw then the Forkbeard, one hand on the arm of the strange giant, Rollo, leading him to the door of the small room. Rollo, though the room about him was frenzied wlth Kurii and their killing, did not seem disturbed. His eyes were vacant. He was led like a child to the small room. I noted that his ax, which he always carried, was bloodied. The blood of Kurii, like that of men, is red, and of simllar chemical composition. It is another similarity adduced by Priest Kings when they wish to argue the equivalence of the warring species. The major difference between the blood content of the Kur and of men is that the plasma of the Kur contains a greater percentage of salt, this acting in water primarily as a protein solvent. The Kur can eat and digest quantities of meat which would kill a man.

Rollo disappeared within the small room.

From my right I heard the scream of a bondmaid. 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 bondmaids, who knelt, terrified, about its legs. The Kur who had leashed his catch then handed the leash to the other Kur, who accepted it, adding 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 striking on wood. Turning I saw Svein Blue Tooth and four others trying to splinter their way from the hall. They had difficulty, though, for many men pressed against them.

I saw Ivar Forkbeard nearby. He had not chosen to escape. His sword was drawn, but it would prove of little efficacy against the great metal shields, the sweeping axes of the Kurii. They could cut a man down before he could approach them, even with the long blade of the North.

The Forkbeard looked about.

There had been more than a thousand men in the hall. Surely at least two or three hundred lay dead, most at the walls, at the foot of the walls, under the weapons which, for the most part, they had been unable to touch.

I saw the Kur who had pursued the bondmaid 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 bondmaid. 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 flaming. We were, some six or seven hundred men, crowded together, effectively surrounded. At our backs was the western wall of the hall.

"Clear room," cried Svein Blue Tooth. "Let us use our axes!"

Trying to draw back from the Kurii, approaching slowly great, blood axes ready, terrified men pushed back, further and further. I managed to free myself from the crowd, and take a position on its fringe, between men and Kurii. If I were cut down I would prefer it to be in a situation where I might move freely. I unsheathed my sword. I saw the lips of one of the Kurii drawing back.

"Your blade is useless," said Ivar Forkbeard, now standing at my side.

The Kurii crept closer.

I heard a scream from a height, and, looking up, saw a human thrown from the balcony which ringed the hall, some thirty feet above the dirt floor, some ten feet below the roof beams. I saw then that Kurii held the balcony.

I did not think they would long delay finishing us. The smoke was thick in the hall. Men choked. Men coughed. I saw, too, the nostrils of the Kurii closing to narrow slits. Sparks fell in their fur. I brushed aside 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 and lowered by a side chain.

"Spears!" cried Ivar. "We need spears!"

But there were few spears in the fear maddened, terrified crowd of men cringing back from the beasts. What spears there were could not be thrown because of the press.

"Clear room," cried Svein Blue Tooth. "Let us use our axes!"

"Your blade is useless," said Ivar Forkbeard, now standing at my side.

The Kurii crept closer.

"Spears!" cried Ivar. "We need spears!"

But there were few spears in the fear maddened, terrified crowd of men cringing back from the beasts. What spears there were could not be thrown because of the press.

To one side I saw the Kur with the golden band on its arm. At the side of its mouth were saliva and blood, the 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, attack!"

But no man moved.

Mere humans, they dared not set themselves against Kurii They would rather, helpless, await their slaughter.

They could not move, so struck with terror they were.

The body of the dead Kur, inert, lay heavy, crooked, in the dirt. The bloodied ax was to one side. The shield arm was twisted in one of the straps. The other strap was broken.

The eyes of the leader of the Kurii, whom I knew to be my enemy, blazed upon me. His horror, seeing his fallen brother of the killing blood, had now become rage, outrage. I, one of the herd, of the cattle, had dared to strike one of the master species, a superior form of life. A Kur had been killed.

I set myself.

Again in the hall of Svein Blue Tooth rang the blood shriek of the Kurii. On each side of the leader, plunging toward us, howling, swept Kurii. Too, they pressed in from the sides, axes falling.

I do not choose to speak in detail of what followed. Kurii themselves, axes like sheets of iron rain, shattered that fearful throng, splitting it into hundreds of screaming fragments of terror. A man not more than a yard from me was cut half in two, from the head to the belt, in one stroke. I managed, as the Kur was twisting his ax, trying to free it of the body, to drive my blade through its neck, under the left ear. I saw Ivar Forkbeard, his sword gone, lost in the body of a nearby Kur, his knife in his hand, one hand thrusting away and upward the jaws of a Kur, repeatedly plunge his knife into the huge chest of the beast. There was uneven footing in the hall. We slipped in the blood. It filled the pit of the long fire. It was splashed about our trousers and tunics. Near one wall I yanked a spear free from the hands of a fallen man-at-arms. Momentarily I sickened at the sight of the exposed lungs, sucking air, the hand scratching at the wall beside him. I hurled the spear. It had a shaft of seven foot Gorean, a head of tapered bronze, some eighteen inches in length. At close range it can pierce a southern shield, shatter its point through a seven inch beam. It passed half through the body of a Kur. Its ax fell. My act had saved a man. But, in the next instant, he had fallen beneath the ax of another. I pressed my back against the wall. A beam fell, burning, from the roof at the southeastern corner of the hall. I heard bondmaids screaming. Kurii looked upward. Their nostrils were shut against the smoke. The eyes of many of them, commonly black pupiled, yellowish in the cornea, seemed red, swollen, veined. I saw one, suflering in the smoke and sparks, look up from feeding, and then again thrust his head down to the meat, clothes torn away from the chest, on which it was feeding. I saw Ivar Forkbeard, with a spear, set himself against the charge of an unarmed Kur. He set the butt of the spear deep in the earth behind him. The spear's shaft gouged a trench six inches deep behind him, and then stopped, and the Kur, biting in the air, eyes like fire, backed away, and fell backward; Ivar leaped away as another ax sought him.

I saw, across the room, the leader of the Kurii, it with the golden band on its arm.

I recalled its words on the platform of the assembly, in the field of the thing. In rage it had cried, "A thousand of you can die beneath the claws of a single Kur!"

There were perhaps now no more than a hundred or a hundred and fifty men left alive in the hall.

"Follow me!" cried Svein Blue Tooth. His ax, and those of his men, had shattered through the rear of the hall. Like panic stricken urts thirtyfive or forty men thrust through the hole, sometimes jamming themselves momentarily within it, some tearing the flesh from their bodies and the sides of their faces on the splintered wood. "Hurry! Hurry!" cried the Blue Tooth. His garments were half torn from him but, still, about his neck, on its chain, was the tooth of the Hunjer whale, dyed blue, by which men in Torvaldsland knew him. Svein thrust two more of his men through the aperture. Kurii were between me and the opening. Ivar Forkbeard, and others, too, were similarly cut off. Another beam fell, flaming and smoking from the roof, striking into the dirt floor, and leaning against the wall. The hangings which had decorated the hall were now gone, burned away, the walls scorched behind them. The only portion of the wall that was clearly afire, however, and threatening to cave in, was the eastern edge of the southern wall.

I saw ten Kurii leap to the back of the hall, to where Svein Blue Tooth and his men had made their opening, to prevent the escape of others.

They stood before the opening, axes lifted, snarling. One man who approached too closely was slashed to the spine with a sweep of the bluish ax.

One who begged mercy in the center of the hall was cut in twain, the blade of the ax driving into the very dirt itself, emerging covered with dirt and blood, streaked with ash.

"The lamps!" cried the Forkbeard to me. "Red Hair," he cried, "the lamps!"

Another beam from the roof, burning, dropped heavily to the floor of the hall.

Marauders of Gor, pgs 205-211

This, another long quote, but meaningful, shows again, that Kurii can be killed as You saw. But maybe more importantly, it showed You just how vicious and powerful they are. This quote has shown You how they made, perhaps the toughest men on Gor, freeze in their tracks. This quote has shown you just how deadly their raids are or can be.

I saw the lips of Kurii draw back. I saw axes lift.

Then again the Forkbeard's voice, through the smoke, the sparks, suddenly half choking, drifted across the hall to me.

"The lamps!" he cried again, as he had before. "Red Hair," he cried, "the lamps!"

Marauders of Gor, pg. 212

This quote, Shows that fire can be used in defense against the Kurii.

Kurii are land animals, not fond of water.

Marauders of Gor, pg. 216

This quote is rather short and to the point. Meaning, they do not like the water, and perfer the land.

The Kurii, for more than twenty thousand years at least, had possessed deep-space capability.

Marauders of Gor, pg. 218

Again, this is another referrence as to how advanced they are.

Kurii are excellent climbers, well fitted for this activity with their multiple jointed hands and feet, their long fingers, thelr suddenly extendable claws, but they followed us, nonetheless, with difficulty.

Marauders of Gor, pg. 221

This quote makes note that the Kurii are excellent climbers, but is not to say, they can climb anything without problems. They do have difficulty just as anyone else would.

"Song, you see," said Ivar, "soothes even Kurii."

Marauders of Gor, pg. 224

The calming tones of songs, can soothe even the mightiest of Kurii.

"Kur," I wondered, "are you my brother?"

The great ax swept toward me. I rolled over it, hitting the snow, slipping. I tried to drive in to thrust with my blade. I slipped again. The ax fell where I had been. A piece of granite, shattered from the rock, stung me. I stumbled backward. The Kur, not hurrying, ax ready, stalked me. I saw its eyes over the shield, the ax light in its great fist. "Hah!" I cried, feinting as though to charge. The ax tensed, but did not swing. Then it snarled and drew back the ax, to the full length of its long arm. I knew the blade could not reach me in time. I charged. It was what the Kur desired. I had been outwitted. The heavy shield, with fantastic force, with a sidelong motion, a sweep, struck me, fending me away, hurtling me for forty feet through the air. I struck snow rolling, half blinded. The ax fell again, shattering granite. I was on my feet. Again the shield struck me, like a hammer, the striking surface of which is more than a yard across Again I was hurled to one side. I stumbled to my feet. I could not move my left arm. I thought it broken. The shoulder was like wood. The ax swung again. I stumbled back. Crying out I lost my balance, turning, and plunged from the peak. I fell to a ledge twenty feet below. The ax, like a pendulum, swept down. I hugged the surface of the ledge. The ax swept past me. I saw, to my right, a small, dark opening, irregular, jagged, about a foot in width and height I leaped to my feet and ran to the brink of the edge. There was no descent. The lips of the Kur drew back, revealing the fangs. I saw Ivar, on the flat above, wild-eyed. "Ivar," I cried. "Ivar!" I heard the blood shriek of an unseen Kur. Ivar turned and leaped to the ledge below, joining me. The two Kurii stood on the flat above, snarling. "Look!" I cried to him, indicating the opening. His eyes saw the opening. They glinted. I moved the fingers of my left hand. There was feeling. I did not know if the arm were broken or not. I thrust the sword into its scabbard. Ivar nodded. One of the Kurii, snarling, leaped to the ledge with us. I hurled a rock at it. The rock struck the shield, bounding with a clang away, down into the abyss. I thrust the Forkbeard toward the hole. He leaped to it, and squirmed through. The second Kur dropped to the ledge. I threw another rock, weightier than the first. It, too, with a sound of granite on metal, was fended away, this time by the shield of the second Kur. I leaped to the hole and forced my body through the opening. The Forkbeard caught my hand and dragged me inside. One of the long arms of a Kur thrust inside, reaching for us. The Forkbeard thrust at it with his sword but the blade was diverted, his arm striking against stone. The Kur withdrew its arm. We crawled back further in the tiny opening. Outside, we could see the heads of the two Kurii, peering within. Their tentacled paws felt the width of the opening. One of them thrust his head within and half a shoulder. The Forkbeard, sword poised, crawled to thrust at it. The Kur withdrew. Then, both of them squatted down, some feet out on the ledge. Kurii are patient hunters. They would wait. I rubbed my left arm and shoulder. I lifted the arm, and moved it. It was not broken. I had learned that the Kur shield could be as devastating a weapon as the war hammer of Hunjer. I wondered how many who had learned that had lived.

I looked outside. The Kurii were waiting.

Marauders of Gor, pgs. 226-227

This quote, although a long one, is another superb example of a Kurii fighting a Man. Just how powerful it is. But as any fighter, it does have weaknesses as well.

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."

"Surely in ancient times, Kurri came together," I said.

"Yes, " it said, "in the matings, and the killing.," 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," 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 larl 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 by the dominant, speaking thusly of the nonreproducing form of Kur."

"The egg-carrier is the female," I said.

"If you like," said the beast, "but, shortly after impregnantion, 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."

"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."

Beasts of Gor, pgs 366-370

This is a quote that shows the use of kurii translators. It also gives a great explanation of the sexes of Kurii.