‘True, may the black lotus-flowers of Hodan-Set breathe on the cramph!”
“Jimstye Gaptooth may know,” said Nolro. “He must put in an appearance tonight when his men fight us.”
“By Morro the Muscle! Could we do it?” demanded Muvko.
A hubbub ensued. Of one thing I was sure, in all the bicep-rolling, muscle-flexing, stomach-tautening going on around me, these fellows would be ugly customers to cross on a wet and windy night, by Krun!
Kimche, the Chulik, a man who had been trained from birth to bear weapons and who now, tuskless, worked as a wrestler in a fairground booth, struck a note of warning.
“Remember, doms! Jimstye Gaptooth employs swordsmen. Who among you can handle a blade?”
The reaction to this unwelcome reminder brought scowls and fists gripping wrists and twisting so the muscles jumped, and a coarse variety of oaths heating the atmosphere. But the fact remained and real; just as these wrestlers were masters of their craft, so swordsmen hired by Jimstye Gaptooth would be masters of theirs. Only Kimche could face them with steel in his fist, and only the Khamorros could hope to live against pointed and edged weapons with empty hands.
“I have a large club,” shouted Fat Lorgan, and his belly shook. “With a nail in the head!”
“And I a dagger,” said Sly Nath the Trivet, looking fierce.
They looked at my little arsenal stacked to hand.
“When is this expedition to be, doms?” I said.
“After the bouts, when the credulous public are all drunk and chasing women and Jimstye Gaptooth is counting his money.”
“A remarkably fitting time,” I observed.
Each office of the consortium was held by a wrestler, and they were punctilious in the discharge of their duties. They employed a tall and supercilious Ng’grogan to present a front to the public, and to call their titles and stations before the contests. He was not, this Abanch from Ng’groga, anything at all like Inch, Kov of the Black Mountains. In a spirit of devilment I offered Abanch a juicy portion of squish pie as we took our meal, the fifth or sixth of the day.
“Thank you, master Jak,” he said, and took it and wolfed it down. I waited. Abanch looked around. “Is there more? For I am inordinately fond of squish pie.”
Kimche handed across the rest.
I said, “I knew a man who stood on his head-”
“Ah!” said Abanch, and spluttered rich juice down his chin and crumbs onto the table. “He is your high and mighty, hoity-toity Ng’grogan, too good for the likes of me.”
I did not hit him. He was like Inch in only one thing; he was tall. But, in the public address he made as the crowds flocked into the enormous marquee where the contest would take place, Abanch earned his hire money. The public paid. They were mostly men, with a sprinkling of women, seafaring folk, and I did not doubt there were a number of renders among them, pirates who had crept in a longboat into some jungly creek and stolen ashore for a night’s jaunt among the flesh-pots. As for the swordshipmen, they preened in fancy uniforms and flashed their smiles and their swords and gold lace.
Many steelworkers and city folk, of course, patronized the fairground. The place was brilliantly illuminated by mineral-oil lamps, with bits of colored glass to lend a fairyland lighting. The noise was prodigious and quite drowned out the eternal sound of the sea. Refreshments were served continually, and many a honey cake was flung in the wrath of an argument along the benches. As for drink, that flowed in a broad river of ale and wine and fermented in the brains and bloodstreams of the spectators. The whole scene in the marquee was rough and rowdy and heated. Everyone hungered to see the fights. As for betting, that was a nicely calculated art and anyone whose skill was lacking would go home with his pocket linings hanging out — if he was not hit on the head in the firm belief that he walked thus to conceal the waist belt stuffed with gold and silver.
Before Abanch had finished two men were carried out, unconscious or dead, it did not seem to matter. The crowds yelled.
The contest began.
Well, by the offensive stink of Makki Grodno’s disgusting diseased liver and lights, it went ill for the consortium from the Golden Prychan.
In the singles only two of our fellows scored outright wins.
When the tag matches began we were on to a hiding to nothing.
Four of us stood on small raised platforms outside the ring, which was fenced with a single bronze chain at waist height. The canvas covered sturmwood planking, and the whole was raised a little. Four of us stood on these platforms, and four of Jimstye Gaptooth’s men stood on platforms adjacent. One from each side leaped into the ring and started to twist each other’s arms and legs off. Kimche was controlling this bout. He faced me across the canvas where squirming bodies writhed. The crowd wanted blood.
Our man, it was Sly Nath the Trivet, hoicked himself on top of his opponent and started banging his head on the canvas covered sturmwood. This was highly pleasing.
The leader of the opposition bellowed, and a hulking Gon, his head a sheen of buttered baldness, leaped into the ring and caught Sly Nath around the throat and choked him back.
“Fat Lorgan!”
Fat Lorgan leaped and used his belly to knock the Gon down. He sat on his head. The first two crawled away on hands and knees. The crowd bellowed. Presently two more were at it, and then I was called in and got my man down, and was only just in time to avoid a diabolical kick in the ear. Kimche loomed up and threw that one away, and we looked about, and, lo! we of the Golden Prychan remained in the ring. Of Gaptooth’s men, none remained. Two were spitting blood on the platform around the outside of the bronze chain; one was lying head down, out to the wide; and the last was being sick all over a plump gentleman in the front row of benches.
Mind you, Sly Nath had an eye that would, come the morning, be a single gigantic purple lump. And Fat Lorgan was staring at a finger that bent backward and dangled when he pushed it. The yelling lessened by a fraction, and Kimche said, “Next foursome.”
Slowly, we of the Golden Prychan overhauled the lead Jimstye Gaptooth’s wrestlers had opened. A singles win counted as one, and one was scored for every man remaining in the ring after the opposition had been thrown out.
Then Muvko said to me as we sat on the participants’ benches, “Now they start in earnest. Their Khamorros come on.”
So I looked at the four men on their platforms, as Kimche, Muvko, and Nolro walked across to our platforms. I joined them, studying the Khamorros belonging to Gaptooth. They were all, instantly seen, of high khams. They were all deadly.
So Kimche began, for Muvko was leader of this bout. The Chulik did not last more than a few murs against the khamster and Nolro went in. Then another one from the other side was followed by me. As I jumped the bronze chain a single scarlet thought flamed across my vosk skull of a head. What was I doing here? What on Kregen was the Emperor of Vallia doing playing tag with a bunch of bone-breaking Khamorros? In a sleazy fairground booth by the light of cheap mineral-oil lamps and surrounded by a blood-hungry mob? It was crazy.
And then, of course, all that went from my mind and I leaped on the fellow who was about to snap Kimche’s arm, hauled him off, twisted him in the grips, and hurled him over the bronze chain. After that it was a splendid blur.
I saw no reason to injure these Khamorros. They were only employees. So I caught them by an ear, or a wrist, or by some more interesting part of their anatomy, and threw them away. The bout was over very quickly, The marquee held a complete silence for six heartbeats, and then the benches erupted.
Muvko was shaking his head.
“You are a marked man now, Jak.”
“Just let us get this over with honor and then we can go and ask Jimstye Gaptooth the questions.”
“May Morro the Muscle have you in his keeping.”
Four more bouts took place with fresh Khamorros or the ones who had been defeated returning. That made no matter. Between us, Muvko, Nolro, Kimche, and I threw them all over the bronze chain. Yes, yes, it was petty, all sweaty men heaving and grunting; but, too, there was a panache about it. They were shouting now, from the benches, shouting that great word that is the unarmed combatman’s equivalent to the Jikai of the swordsman.