Suddenly, as is often the case with those heavily intoxicated, his manner changed like lightning. One moment he was surly and scowling; in the next he was scarlet and trembling with rage.
“On your feet when you exchange words with Curan Gor, you smoothfaced puppy!” And with those words he slapped me across the face with a savage blow of one massive hand.
All sound ceased; the room became deathly silent. In the next instant those who sat nearby unobtrusively rose to their feet and sidled away from Guran Gor and me, leaving that portion of the room empty. I sat there, pale as death, cold with fury, my face stinging from the blow. The huge man towered over me, hands hovering near the pommel of his sword. He breathed heavily between open, pendulous lips, and from time to time the tip of his tongue would snake out to wet his lips.
There was nothing to do but to fight him.
I sprang from my chair in one lithe, whip-like blur of motion. One fist I balled and drove thudding into the pit of his belly with all the strength of the steely sinews of arm and shoulder. He sagged forward, eyes goggling, and as he did so I brought a terrific uppercut from the floor. My fist caught him on the point of the jaw with an audible crack, like the sound of a sapling suddenly broken. It was a terrific blow and it lifted him an inch or two off the floor. He went floundering backwards, crashing among the tables, and lay sprawled like a dead man.
The tense, watching crowd relaxed, shuffled, eyed me with dull and wary approval, and returned to its drinks again. The man who served us wine emerged from his station wiping his hands on a scrap of dirty cloth, took up the unconscious hulk of Guran Gor by the feet and dragged him out a side door into the alley, returning to give me a passive, noncommittal look before busying himself with the serving of drinks again. The confrontation was over almost before it began, and the room returned to normal.
“I can’t help admiring the way you handled Guran Gor just now,” said a voice at my elbow. I looked up as a bony little man with the sharp, cunning eyes of a ferret came to my table.
“Thank you,” I said.
“My name is Ulvius Spome,” he said unctuously. “Let me buy you a drink and let’s get acquainted. I might have a job for a fellow who can handle himself as ably as you, but that depends on whether or not you can use a sword as well as you can use your fists.”
Shrugging, I indicated an empty chair, into which he slid, calling loudly for service. He ordered a bottle of decent vintage and sat back, examining me narrowly with a little smile on his thin lips. His eyes slid over me, weighing, measuring, calculating. I felt clammy and unclean as those cold, shrewd eyes crawled over me — it was as if they left behind a trail of slime upon my flesh.
“I am pretty good with a sword,” I said. “What kind of a job did you have in mind?”
He poured the wine with a practiced twist of the wrist.
“Easy, now, let’s get acquainted a little before we talk business. From the cut of you I would figure you for a panthan, right? And from the dismal slop you've been drinking, I’d say it’s been a long time since you worked and that you could probably use a bit of change about now, right?”
“On both counts,” I admitted.
“What’s your name, and where are you from?”
“My name is Kar Havas,” I said without a moment’s hesitation, giving the first name that came into my head. Kar Havas had been a boyhood friend of mine, killed in an accident with his flier many years before. “I am a native of Vaxar in the land of Omtol, but I have been working for some years now in Amdor,” I added, mentioning a small, insignificant city northeast of Vaxar in the eastern foothills of the mountain country.
Ulvius Spome nodded, then inquired why I had happened to leave my former place of employment.
I laughed in a self-conscious manner. “I became attached to the retinue of a noble house in Amdor, whose master was possessed by a deathly fear his rivals and enemies were planning his assassination. Actually, these enemies existed only in his fearful imagination. It was a snug and secure berth and I could have stayed there for many years to come, but my master’s wife began acting as though she found me rather attractive . . .”
Ulvius Spome sniggered. “I get it! So you flew out of there before your master put something or other in your drink, or maybe a knife between your ribs, eh?”
“Something like that,” I smiled. “Today, doubtless my former master has a new bodyguard; presumably, he chose one even uglier than himself!”
The little ferret-eyed man burst into a peal of raucous laughter, and poured more wine into my cup, before getting down to business.
It transpired that he wanted me to display my abilities with the sword be fore one Han Hova, who was gamesmaster of the great arena of Kanator and who managed the gladiatorial combats which formed the most popular sport among the citizens. These gladiatorial contests, so like the gory festivals held in the Roman Colisseum, are a depraved practice into which the Kanatorians have sunk in recent years, since their resounding defeat at the hands of Zorad in the war I have mentioned earlier. The custom of lolling on the rows of an amphitheatre while men fight to the death against savage beasts and other men for your amusement is a loathsome and bestial vice to which, among the many peoples of Barsoom, only the bestial green hordes are customarily addicted.
They are a race of cruel and fiendish monsters, devoid of the slightest trace of sentiment or mercy or friendship or love, and count little better than wild beasts in the estimate of the red Martian civilizations. To learn that Kanator had developed a thirst for these savage spectacles was a clear sign of the decadence into which she has sunken under the dynastic house of Zed. For, while we Zoradians delight in contests of skill between trained swordsmen, and in air races and similar contests between teams of thoat-trawn chariots, we hold in the utmost abhorrence the very concept that a battle to the death between brave men is even to be considered a form of entertainment.
This being the case, my gorge rose at the thought of partaking in such disgusting spectacles, and would have curtly declined had it not occurred to me that if the citizenry attended these games in such vast numbers as Ulvius Spome swore was so, I might find it far easier in this way to discover the whereabouts of Xana of Kanator. And besides, as I was accounted among my fellow-Zoradians a swordsman of superlative skill, it seemed very likely that I should have little or naught to fear as regards the safety of my person during such combats as might ensue in the games.
Therefore, I decided to tentatively accept the offer of Ulvius Spome, although I distrusted his motives and did not in the least like his appearance. We promptly made an appointment to meet at the gates of the great arena of Kanator the following morning, where he promised to arrange for me to display my swordsmanship before the eyes of this Han Hova.
SYNOPSIS
I envision a series of at least three books, perhaps five, laid on the Barsoom of Edgar Rice Burroughs, but involving none of the characters or settings used in his famous novels.
On page 23 of Chessmen of Mars, Burroughs states that the region northwest of Helium is one of the least-known areas of the planet. It is completely unknown to the Heliumites, who have never ventured into those parts. I have chosen this, the Xanthus, region as the setting of my new Mars books, so as to avoid employing any of the cities or regions used by Burroughs.