As it was, we fought with his national weapon, and he had four arms and he was possessed of great skill. He leaped for me and his arms wove a deadly net of steel. I backed away nimbly, leaping dead bodies, for the court had not been cleared of the corpses. He roared and charged.
“Stand and fight, you nulsh! By Zodjuin of the Storm-clouds! Act like a man, even if you are only apim!”
There had to be a way of taking him. He would not be decoyed so easily as to stumble over a dead man. Djangs are warriors born. I circled, for we were pent between the mystic friezes of the sacred court of the warrior gods, and men clustered in the arcades, watching us by the light of torches. On those walls frowned down the carved representations of warrior gods, the pantheon of Djanduin. High over the rest rose a giant stele with symbols incised upon it describing the creation of Djanduin out of the primitive miasmas of the Ocean of Doubt. Djan had called forth the land and the land had risen and, lo! that land was Djanduin, blessed among the lands of the world. Kov Nath flickered his three djangirs most expertly while he kept his left lower blade down and limp, as though out of the play. I might not have four arms, but I recognized the symptom of the ploy he was trying there. As I circled he rushed me in an attempt to finish the thing quickly. I took two djangirs upon my own and skipped aside as the third sliced down past my thigh and only just managed to interpose a hurriedly snatched blade between that last, treacherous, left low blade and my belly. He roared, and stood back, the sweat starting out all over his body.
“Hai! For a cripple you fight passing well!”
I did not reply. Along the walls the sacred carvings seemed to flicker in the torchlight and to march, writhing across the stone. They appeared to me to be marching around, up there, along the friezes, and to be looking down on us as we fought for the faerling throne.
Asshurphaz, Djondalar, Rig, Zodjuin, perhaps the most favored by warriors of the warrior gods, Djan-kadjiryon. All of them were armed, armored, crested, their diamond and ruby eyes gleaming down in the torchlight, and they writhed and rippled there upon the solid stone walls. Nundji was there, escorted by wild leems, railing against the warriors who had jailed him in a leem-hell. Over on the far side the draperies of Mother Diocaster seemed to surge as the torchlight shimmered across the pale alabaster surfaces. The shadows moved.
Kov Nath leaped again and his blades wove a deceptive circle of sparks. I ducked and slid sideways and tried to stick him in the belly. Two djangirs came down with a firm finality and halted my blade, and only a savage kick and lunge saved a third from going through my shoulder. Those watchful Djangs kept a strict silence at first. But as we leaped and lunged across the mosaics of the floor, hurdling dead bodies, slipping and recovering in the pools of spilled blood, so the fire got to those wild warriors and they began to yell. There were fierce shouts of encouragement for Kov Nath from those of his men who had remained here, until the challenge and acceptance had been confirmed. My men yelled, too. The torches waved in the wide space, curling the streaming golden hair against the darkness of Notor Zan. I knew I was likely to go down into Notor Zan’s paunch, and wake up in the Ice Floes of Sicce, if I did not speedily devise a system for sticking a man with four arms who knew how to handle four deadly djangirs with consummate skill.
“You are no Djang, rast; but stand and fight like a man, by Zodjuin of the Glittering Stux!”
As Kov Nath spoke, I leaped with a great fury and so took him high on the upper left shoulder. The morphology of the Djangs is remarkable, for their doubled shoulder blades constructed rather like sliding doors give equal power — well, almost equal power — to their upper and lower arms, and their muscles rope like steel across their backs. I sliced some flesh and the blood spouted. A hoarse shout rose from the assembled warriors and then, out of nowhere, I felt a keen blade slice down my side. I swiveled and lurched away and I felt the blood running down my side; but I did not put a hand to it. There was no time.
Kov Nath bored in, his four blades wheeling with as much ferocity as when we had begun.
“You are a dead nulsh now, Notor Prescot!”
I had discarded the idea of throwing a djangir. I could have done so — as could he — but I think we both realized we had the skill to slip a blade. But the hurling of a djangir was something he could afford better than could I, for he had four.
“Prepare to meet your pagan gods!” he bellowed again, and charged, and the four blades sang and whistled about me. I thought of nothing much thereafter, except a memory of three things — of Zair, of dealing with the savage beasts of Kregen, and of Delia.
I concentrated on cutting him up piece by piece. I would not be clever, or go for the big one. As I had the shorgortz and the Ullgishoa and the boloth, three out of many memorable combats, I would deal with this wild leemshead piecemeal.
He was very quick and very clever and he bored in without allowing me a moment’s respite, now that he thought he had me and I was done for. I let him come in and so twisted and leaped far to the side, away from the point of his attack. As I leaped both my djangirs came down onto his upper right arm. I hacked with tremendous force, and, together, the blades struck, cutting and shattering the arm so that the white bone showed bloodily through the skin.
Immediate yells broke out from all around the sacred court. Kov Nath staggered back, looking stupidly at the ruin of his arm. His fingers could no longer hold the djangir and they opened, and the blade — it had some of my blood upon it — slid jangling to the floor.
I did not give him time to recover from the shock.
I came in low, almost bent double, surged up, and hacked across his lower left forearm, taking off the wrist, the hand, and the djangir in a splashing gout of blood.
The Djangs have an astounding agility and an almost superhuman strength. Shock and amazement shattered Kov Nath, but he came back at me with fearful courage and ferocity. I had to hack and slash and slice and fend him off, but, all blood-smeared with his two ruined arms flailing, like some ghastly monster from the deepest hells of Kregen, he pursued me. I backed up and turned and waited. Then, as he lunged with a fearful scream to sink the djangirs in my throat, and I fronted him and smashed them aside, I saw the first faint crack in his psychology, the first chink in his armor of courage. But he would not give in as easily as that. The stump of his left lower arm battered my body, bruising me around the ribs. I swung away, and as he bellowed and charged to follow I let him have a Krozair of Zy foot-kick. I missed the target, but he screamed and backed away, and I slashed — rather foolishly — at his throat, for I wanted to finish this ghastly business quickly now. His return sliced down my arm, drawing blood and making me grip the djangir tightly, for I thought I’d lost control of my arm then. He saw that, and the chink in his armor closed. He stood for a moment glaring, his chest heaving, blood and sweat rivering down his magnificent body.
“By Zodjuin of the Stormclouds! You will die now, apim!”
I felt that I might usefully add an observation to the so far one-sided conversation. I said, “By Vox, you nurdling onker! You have but two hands now! You are less than an apim now!
And, by Zim-Zair, you will be less than a dead apim before a mur or two!”
He flinched back.
Oh, yes, he was magnificent, even pathetically smothered with blood, with his two useless arms dangling. But the two he had left still clutched sharp steel, and he made a final enormous effort to bear me down with him. He jumped and roared and the two djangirs lanced for me, one to the eyes, the other to the belly.
I parried them both.
He knew then, did Kov Nath Jagdur, that this was his end.
For, marvelous fighter that he was, he recognized that I had not instantly followed the parries with attack. I had held back, poised to destroy him at my pleasure. He saw all that. He was too fine a fighter not to recognize the truth. He had tried all his tricks, and they had failed him. He knew that I had not riposted through fear of closing with him; he understood I had him at my mercy now, for I had read all his cunning and skill and bested them.