When I learned the secret of that anger-stimulating wine I understood why there was kool after kool of beautiful flowers growing in Hyrklana. And I had thought that meant the people were civilized, beauty-loving! We grew flowers in Delphond, gorgeous blooms, and they delighted our senses. I did not think a happy Vallian of Delphond would care for the uses to which the Jikhorkdun put the sermine flower.
“Behind you, Drak!” roared Cleitar.
Already aware of the Bleg heaving up from the sand at my back as I turned, I yet shouted an acknowledgment to Cleitar.
“By Opaz! A persistent fellow, Cleitar.”
We stood upon that blood-soaked silver sand. The suns poured down their radiance upon that scene of horror. Stretched upon the arena floor lay the bodies of fifteen Blegs and seventeen apims. Only Cleitar Adria, Naghan the Gnat, and myself survived. With the fading of the effects of the drugged wine, Naghan vomited all over the sand.
“Brace yourself, oh Gnat!” said Cleitar. There was about his blond face a look that did not puzzle me. He had fought and he had won, and he was feeling marvelous. I suspected that the quoffa handler might have found his true vocation as kaidur.
The amphitheater was filling with spectators. We saluted the royal box, empty as yet, and marched back to face the wrath of Nath the Arm. Slaves ran to sprinkle and rake. The beast-howl of the crowd muted as we entered the iron-bound tunnels and so made our way back to our quarters. Nath the Arm looked at us.
“Three!” he said, shaking his head in wonderment. “I had thought the whole twenty of you marked for the Ice Floes.”
“Maybe you trained us well, Nath,” I said.
He looked at me, and his dark eyes swelled in their sockets — then he chuckled. “By Kaidun! You three may yet become kaidurs! A miracle, a veritable miracle, as the glass eye and brass sword of Beng Thrax is my witness!”
Cleitar Adria chuckled, flexing his muscles, the blood wet and slick upon his body, clogging the blond hairs. He was a man who would never need drugs to fight as kaidur; he had tasted the power, and he had found his vocation.
Naghan the Gnat winked and said, “Nath the Arm! Where are all the shishis sighing for our favors you promised us?”
“Cramph!” roared Nath, mightily outraged. “You are coys! When you are kaidurs! And then, oh puissant Gnat, who will care for your scrawny body, hey?”
“You’d be surprised,” said Naghan the Gnat.
Chapter Nine
Tilly peeled a grape most carefully with her long, slender golden fingers and popped the juicy squishy morsel into my open mouth. I lay on my back, supported by heaped silken cushions, clad in a light lounging robe of sensil whose touch is softer than the ordinary silk, a massive golden bracelet upon my left wrist, a trophy flung down by an admirer the day before. Around me the high-ceilinged marble chamber with its tall windows letting in the glorious rays of Far and Havil was crammed with trophies, feathers, weapons, gold and silver, flowers and laurels, the whole gorgeous and barbaric loot of a successful kaidur. A chest of jewels open at the foot of the couch spilled pearl necklaces, diamond rings, brooches and torques of a hundred varieties of gems.
Much of this lavish wealth, of course, had been won by wagers. A table whose legs were formed into zorca hooves supported a lavish display of wines. Needless to detail them all. Each was a superlative vintage. There was even a flagon of Jholaix. What that had cost I did not know, for commerce on Kregen follows common sense routes and parameters, and an importer will fetch his wine from only so far off, and an exporter will scarce wish to venture farther than he need to sell his wares.
“Enough of grapes, Tilly,” I said. “Palines!”
She giggled. Tilly was a Fristle girl. I detested Fristles as a general rule, and yet — remembering Sheemiff — I had to admit I cared for their women. A cat-people, the Fristles, yet quite un-catlike in their social habits. Tilly had a golden body fur covering a shape that would drive most men’s mouths dry. Remembering my Delia — a shallow and silly remark, that, for I would never be able to forget her, my Delia, my Delia of Delphond — I could still admit that Tilly was a most beautiful female. Her face with its wide slanted eyes, its full moist mouth, and — even — her delightful little whiskers, so unlike the Latin woman’s heavy moustache, all delighted me.
She began to toss palines into my mouth and I to suck them down. I had respected her. I was a successful and, so far, exciting new kaidur. I was not yet a great kaidur. Everyone said that would come. I did not agree.
Escape for the slaves, the workers, the coys, apprentices, and kaidurs was impossible. All the working exits to the warren of workrooms, rings, and barracks adjoining the massive amphitheater were closely guarded. And there was no way of climbing up into the lowest ring of seats and escaping through the many exits used by the public of Huringa. Only the greatest of great kaidurs were allowed freely to stroll in the city. They had the scales weighed in their advantage and they had everything to gain by staying, and nothing to win by escaping. I did not think I would stay around long enough to become a great kaidur. So I could loll in my grand sensil robe and eat squishes and palines and grapes and chatter pleasantly with Tilly; for on this night I would escape from Huringa, and from the land of Hyrklana, and return to Migla. If Delia had left I would then fly to Valka. I own for a concern. It had begun to ram through the diabolical interference of the Star Lords on that field of the Valley of the Crimson Missals. A force of Canops had remained unbeaten. If the rain prevented my longbowmen from shooting. . But, I felt, Seg would master that problem.
Nath the Arm strutted in then, his gorgeous robes worn when off duty lighting up that already dazzling chamber. He looked cheerful.
“I have had three more offers, Drak the Sword. And one from that pimply idiot, the Kov of Manchifwell.”
“You will accept, of course.”
I had to let Nath the Arm believe everything went as usual. These special wagers were a profitable source of his income. Other famous kaidurs were already beginning to measure their prowess against the strides made by Drak the Sword. Nath had promised, with tears in his eyes, that he would make me the greatest kaidur in all of Hyrklana, aye, in all of Hamal, too!
The reds prospered, to the greater glory of the ruby drang. Naghan the Gnat still lived, and was now, at my request, not used as a kaidur in the arena but served as our armorer. His sinewy strength was more adapted to the cunning blows required in the fashioning of armor than in the different skills of parting warriors from essential portions of their anatomy. Cleitar Adria, too, still lived, and was winning a renown for himself. There were a number of kaidurs in the barracks controlled by Nath who were still regarded as greater than I; this had no power to disturb me. I merely fought that I might stay alive. Well, in that, as you who have listened to my story may guess, I am less than honest. A fight is a fight. I have given you something of my philosophy of swordsmanship already, and I admit to a fascinated interest in the chance that each fresh day, each new challenge, would bring me at last face to face with a greater swordsman than I am.[3]
“There are also fifty coys all green and dripping.”
I sighed. We needed recruits, for the reds were fighting many unequal combats on the silver sand of the arena. But I disliked the way we obtained our coys. Anyone who displeased the queen or any of her nobles was liable to be swept up to serve as fodder for the Jikhorkdun. Those people with whom I had been captured had been leaving a meeting called to discuss ways and means of bringing the queen down. She was, everyone agreed, a bitch. Her husband, the king, was a weakling, a mere cipher. She was, also, this haughty Queen Fahia, the twin sister of that Princess Lilah I had rescued from the Manhounds of Faol.