By now he was streaming with blood and sweat, and foam slavered from his grinning jaws, but he still came on, showing no signs of exhaustion.
And then very suddenly, the duel was over.
One wild, awkward blow had caught me unawares and my slim blade snapped off short, just beyond the hilt. A thrill of alarm ran through me as I realized I was now unarmed.
Murder flamed in his piggish little eyes and a triumphant note entered his hoarse, bestial howl as he raised his nicked cutlass for the kill.
Instead of jumping to one side, as he might have expected, I took a great risk―and sprang forward, to close with him!
Sometimes, in moments of great peril, when all seems utterly lost, it has been my experience that to do the completely unexpected can often snatch victory from between the slavering jaws of defeat. And never was this more ably proven than when I sprang into the embrace of the maddened colossus.
He was dumbfounded, caught with both arms and the heavy blade raised above his head, and as my body jammed against him he staggered off balance and fell stumbling to the rush-strewn stone pave.
And I was upon him like a striking jungle cat.
The broken sword hilt in my hand was all but useless. The blade had snapped off near the hilt, but where the steel blade had fractured was a sharp, jagged point.
This point I sank into the thick flesh of Bluto’s neck ―and ripped, tearing his throat out!
As I staggered, panting, to my feet, he died on the stone pave in a gush of reeking gore. To the last, an expression of blank astonishment filled his eyes with dazed incomprehension. I do not believe he understood that he was slain until his eyes glazed in death and his heaving breast gave one last shudder and was stilled forever.
I had not wanted to slay the poor fool, but he would have it so. A fight to the death, sword against sword, but it had been his death, after all.
I left him lying there in a pool of blood.
Taking up his sword in the place of my own, and borrowing the candelabra from the table, I set forth to search the Pits of Shondakor to find my friends.
It probably took no more than a few minutes, but in my state of anxiety it seemed like the better part of an hour. Even now, Darloona might be standing before the hideous idol of the Black Legion while Ool sealed her life forever to that of the oily weakling I once had served!
Most of the cells were empty, mere dim, noisome cubicles which bore a rude wooden bench and a heap of moldy straw. But some were tenanted―by the dead.
I paced swiftly down the first corridor, pausing before each cell and lifting my candelabra to illuminate the dark recesses within, before striding on.
Repulsive, naked horebs―the verminous rodents of Thanator, which sometimes attain the size of small dogs―fled wriggling and squealing from the light. One glance at that which served them for a banquet and I hastily averted my eyes, as nausea clutched at my throat.
But ere very much time had elapsed the flickering illumination of the candles showed a welcome sight―Lukor, looking pale and disheveled, chained to one wall of a filthy cubicle, and gaunt, solemn-faced old Koja blinking his great black eyes, chained to the other.
“Ho! Jandar, is it you?” the old Swordmaster chortled with delight. “My boy, never have these eyes looked upon a more welcome sight!”
I had prudently taken a ring of keys from Bluto’s girdle, and after a little fumbling I found the right one, unlocked the cell door and went in to relieve my comrades of their chains.
“I’m glad I could get here before you were interrogated,” I said as I helped them remove their shackles. “Are either of you hurt? The Legion sometimes plays mighty rough.”
Lukor sniffed, straightening his sober raiment and smoothing his small white beard into something resembling its customary neatness.
“Not at all, my boy, not at all! Oh, there was a trifle of a flurry before we were disarmed, but Koja there dispatched a few of the bandy-legged little wretches with his blade and I gave a couple of the others a brief lesson in swordplay; but neither of us sustained anything more serious than a few scratches,” he said complacently.
Koja blinked his huge eyes solemnly at me as I unfastened his chains.
“It is good to see you again, Jandar,” he said in his monotonous voice. I clapped him affectionately on the upper thorax and said I was happy to see him, too.
“But what in the world are you two fools thinking of, trying to get into Shondakor like this? Didn’t you know you’d be spotted and seized before you got halfway?” I demanded.
Lukor sobered. “We had to do it, lad. Word of the Princess Darloona’s impending nuptials to this Black Legion princeling leaked out and the Ku Thad got wind of it. Your friend, Marud, I fear, was responsible for that!”
My pulses quickened.
“Marud―the innkeeper? You mean he got through after all―with my message about the secret tunnel under the river and the city walls?”
Luker looked surprised.
“Of course,” he said. “How did you think Koja and I got inside Shondakor, if not by the hidden tunnel of which your letter apprised Lord Yarrak?”
I had not really thought things out. I guess I had assumed that K0Ja and Lukor had somehow sought to gain entry through the city gates and were taken prisoner. But now this surprising news changed everything. Marud must have been seized by the warriors of Ool the Uncanny on his way back into the city, instead of on his way out. I had not been sure which had been the case, but for some reason or other I had assumed he had been seized en route to the entrance of the tunnel.
I thought rapidly.
“Then this means the Ku Thad warriors are ready to attempt to retake the city by means of the underground passage?”
“That is true, and they are growing restive!” said Lukor, his merry eyes going grim. “Koja and I begged them to wait for some further news―from you before charging into the middle of things, but the thought that their beloved Princess was being forced to wed the Prince of the Chac Yuul has maddened them to the point of throwing off all restraints. They will wait no longer, so we came on ahead, desperately hoping to locate you and to gain some word of your own plans in time to coordinate them with the attack of the Ku Thad. Jandar―Jandar! Why in the name of the Lords of Cordrimator did you never communicate with us again, after that first message?”
“It was impossible,” I said. “The only man I could trust was the fat innkeeper, Marud―and the guards seized him as he was reentering Shondakor after delivering that first note from me. They were planning to interrogate him, probably under torture, for I am certain that Arkola the Warlord would not scruple over the matter of a little pain!”
“And did they? Get anything out of Marud, I mean?” Lukor asked. I shook my head somberly.
“There was a real man behind that fat belly and that foolish face,” I said softly. “For he killed himself rather than yield my name to those who were to interrogate him.”
Lukor cleared his throat.
“A very gallant gentleman,” he said quietly. “I shall be proud to drink to his memory, when there is a drop of wine and a bit of leisure. But now―”
“But now we must get out of here―and fast, for every moment counts! Darloona will be wed to Arkola’s son this very day―almost at any moment! We must get swords and do what we can do to interrupt the ceremonies.”
And I cursed the low technology of the Thanatorians that they had not yet invented the wristwatch. For I had lost all sense of time by now and would have given my left hand to know what was the hour.