Free Marauders of Gor by John Norman

waiting for the Sa-Tarna harvest!"
                The man turned away and began to pull the gold hanging from the walls.
                I saw, twenty feet from me, screaming, the giant, he of incredible stature, striking down at the kneeling people, who were crying out and trying to crawl away. The great blade dipped and cut, and swept up, and then cut down again. I saw the wild muscles of his bare arms bulging and knotted. Slobber came from his mouth. One man lay half cut through.
                "Rollo!" cried out Forkbeard. "The battle is done!"
                The giant, with the grayish face and shaggy hair, stood suddenly, unnaturally, quiet, the great, curved blade lifted over a weeping man. He lifted his head slowly, and turned it, slowly, towards the altar.
                "The battle is done!" cried Forkbeard
                Two men of   Torvaldsland then held the giant by the arms, and lowered his ax, and, gently, turned him away from the people. He turned and looked back at them, and they cowered away. But it did not seem that they recognised them.   It seemed he did not know them and had not seen them before. Again his eyes seemed vacant. He turned away, and walked slowly, carrying his ax, toward one of the doors of the temple.
                "Those   who would live," called our Forkbeard, "lie on the your stomachs."
                The people in the temple, many of them splattered with the blood of their neighbours, some severely wounded, threw themselves, shuddering, man and woman, and child, to their stomachs. They lay among many of their own dead.
                I myself did not lie with them. Once I had been of the warriors.
                I stood.
                The men of Torvaldsland turned to face me.
                "Why do you not lie beneath the ax, Stranger?" called out Forkbeard.
                "I am not weary," I told him.
                Forkbeard laughed. "It is a good reason," he said. "Are you of Torvaldsland?"
                "No," I told him.
                "You are of the warriors?" asked Forkbeard.
                "Perhaps once," I told him.
                "I shall see," said Forkbeard. Then to one of his men, he said, "Hand me a spear." One of the spears which had formed the platform on which he had been carried, gaining entrance to Kassau and the temple, was handed to him.
                Suddenly behind me I heard a war cry of Torvaldsland.
                I turned and swept to the guard position, in the instant seeing the man's distance, and spun again to strike from my body, before it could penetrate it, the hurled spear of Ivar Forkbeard. It must be taken behind the point with the swift   blow of the forearm. The spear caroomed away and struck the wall of the temple, fifty feet behind me.   In the same instant I had spun again, in the guard position, to stand against   the man with his ax. He pulled up short, and looked to Ivar Forkbeard. I turned again to face the Forkbeard.
                He grinned. "Yes, he said, "once perhaps you were of the warriors."
                I looked to the man behind me, and to the others. They lifted their axes in their right hand. It was a salute of Torvaldsland. I heard their cheers.
                "He remains standing." Said Ivar Forkbeard.
                I sheathed my sword.
                "Hurry!" called the Forkbeard to his men. "Hurry! The people of the town will gather!"
                Swiftly, tearing hangings from the walls, prying loose sheets of gold, pulling down even lamps from their chains, filling their cloaks with cups and plates, the men of Torvaldsland stripped the temple of what   they could tear loose and carry. Ivar Forkbeard leaped down from the altar and began, angrily, to hurl vessels of consecrated