Win? For a moment he did not understand. Then Blade saw the byplay enacted before him and did understand. There was no mystery. It was as primitive, as elemental, as sex. Or death. Or Totha.
The young Pethcine had been lounging nearby. He appeared taller than most of them and his body bulged with muscle. All this while he had been glowering at Blade. Now he rose from his stool and went to the throne and said something to the girl. She stared at him coldly. Org slapped his fat leg and shouted with laughter.
Totha gave the young man a push. He scowled and clutched at her arm, shouting angrily.
Totha balled her fist and struck him hard in the face. She picked up a cup and dashed the contents into his face. The Pethcine stepped back and glared from Totha to Blade. Org shouted with laughter again and pounded on his paunch with a balled fist.
Totha stood up and came toward Blade. Her hips were sinuous and she reminded him of a very beautiful snake. Her bared breasts jounced with each step.
"Be careful," whispered Honcho. "Do not offend her. She rules Org. She has only to ask and she gets. Our heads if she desires them. Be very careful!"
Blade understood then what Honcho had really meant by putting himself in jeopardy. Here in the Gorge he was shorn of many of his technical powers. Honcho, at the moment, was as vulnerable as Blade himself.
The next moment he forgot Honcho.
Totha stood before Blade. She raised herself on tiptoe and peered into his eyes. She put dainty hands on his big shoulders and caressed them. She ran her fingers down his arms and around his chest and brushed them over his smooth-fleshed middle. She smiled at him.
"I believe you are a God," said the girl. "Perhaps not Mazda, but a God just the same. I want you. Totha wants you."
She pressed herself against Blade. She crushed her firm bare breasts against him. She reached and pulled his head down to meet her lips. Her tongue struck at his mouth and again he thought of a lovely snake.
"Totha wants you," she said again. "You will kill Gutar for me. I have grown tired of him anyway."
Blade held her closely. Her skin was petal smooth and smelled of sex and death. Over her shoulder he saw King Org giving orders and men were bringing weapons. Blade also saw Honcho. The neuter's lips moved.
"Be sure you kill him!"
Chapter Six
The mob of Pethcines, sensing blood, left off drinking and copulating in public and rose to their feet in one great shouting horde.
"Gutar! Gutar! Gutar!"
Honcho stood off to one side, his arms folded. He did not speak to Blade again. This was the unforeseen event and the neuter could not help. This in no way dismayed Blade. He was confident.
Totha kissed him once more and pressed herself against him, then went back to her throne where she sat and smiled at him in encouragement. King Org motioned for Blade to approach the throne. Gutar was already there. He cursed and spat at Blade's feet as the big man came up.
King Org was happy at the prospect of a fight He scratched his ringlet of beard and leered at Blade.
"This is well. It will settle much. If you are indeed Mazda you will Mil Gutar. If not he will surely kill you. He is the champion of all the Pethcines and has already killed three men today."
Org waved a hand toward the heads and bodies still littering the sands of the arena. "They challenged Gutar, as it was their right to do on this time of Sacer. Had any of them won they would have had the right to Totha. You have won her without a fight, for she wants you. But you must fight to keep her. I, Org of the Pethcines, say it. What weapons will you have, O Mazda?"
The last was said with a cunning little wink of the fat enshrouded eyes.
Blade had been studying the proffered weapons. He wanted none of them.
Blade drew the rapier from its scabbard with a rasping flourish. "I will have a shield," he said. "None else."
As he spoke he glanced at Honcho. The neuter did not look happy. Blade smiled. Honcho's carefully laid plans would go up in smoke if Blade were killed.
Gutar thought Blade's smile was disdain for him. He leaped at Blade with a roar of rage, still unarmed. Blade moved swiftly, tripping the sturdy Pethcine as he rushed past. Gutar went sprawling heavily on his face. The crowd stopped shouting. King Org looked thoughtful. Totha clapped her hands. Honcho nearly smiled.
Org pointed a fat round ringer at Gutar, who was getting up and looking a bit crestfallen. "You will wait, Gutar, until I give the word. Or I will kill you!"
Gutar retired to confer with his Pethcine friends. He was stripped down now. Naked. It was the way the Pethcines fought.
Org said: "Shields are not permitted in private combat. You must fight naked, with only your weapons. You really wish to use only that stick, that thing?" Org gazed doubtfully at the slender rapier.
Before Blade could answer Gutar was shouting. "Let him have his shield! And I, Gutar, will use a bow." One of his men handed him a short bow and a quiver with three arrows in it. Blade guessed that there was tradition for this.
Org looked at Blade. "You agree?"
It changed the odds, especially as Gutar was also armed with a short heavy sword and a long throwing net, but Blade's reply was curt. "I agree. Let us be on with it. before Gutar has time to think and loses his courage."
The big Pethcine howled in new rage at the insult, as Blade had intended. He was confident, but not overconfident. He had not counted on arrows, and would have to match them with psychological arrows of his own. So he stared in contempt at Gutar and said, "Are you ready, Gutar? Or do you wish to weep a little first? Or perhaps to pray?"
This time Gutar did not answer. He leaped out into the center of the arena and waited, crouching, near the great stone. He swung the net slowly back and forth in his left hand, the short, broad-bladed sword in his right, the bow and quiver slung across his broad shoulders.
A shield was flung at Blade. It was small, hardly larger than a dinner plate, made of hide with a central boss of gleaming metal. At once he began to have misgivings; this was not his idea of a shield and it was little cover for his huge body. In exposed flesh area Gutar was going to have a distinct advantage.
Now Blade stood naked except for the rapier and the shield. He glanced at Totha. She was leaning forward on her throne, her eyes glued on his body, and she was not looking at his face. He saw a sharp little red tongue lick around her wide mouth and again he thought of a snake.
Blade faced Gutar. He had the reach with the rapier, his arms were longer, but there was the net that could entrap either Blade or his weapon. He began to circle Gutar, moving slowly to the right, hoping that the other would rush him. If he did Blade could end it quickly.
Gutar was too wise to rush. Now that the fight had actually begun he seemed to have lost his rage This, Blade knew, was an old hand. A cool hand. Already he sensed the reasons why Gutar was champion of all the Pethcines.
Gutar turned with Blade's movement, moving his sword in short glittering circles but making no effort to rush.
"Kill, Gutar! Kill-kill-kill-kill!"
It was, Blade thought wryly, something of a partisan crowd.
Gutar flung the net. He was skillful. Blade had been expecting it, yet he could not move fast enough to avoid it. The net settled over his head and shoulder, not heavy, but binding him and cramping his sword arm. Gutar rushed at him, his broad flat face contorted in a grin of malice. He did not swing the short sword, as Blade had expected, but thrust with it in an upward disemboweling stroke.
Blade's sword arm was netted. He acted without thought, and dropped the shield and tossed the rapier from his useless right hand to his free left hand. It was a dangerous move. If he dropped the rapier while still netted he was finished.