"Kill!" gloated the giant. "I kill!"
Dumarest tensed as the giant reared back, the staff lifted high. His hands shifted as he altered his grip on his own weapon. Should Gilliam sweep his staff downwards in a cut shy;ting blow then he must spring to one side and slam the end of his own pole directly into one of the eyes. If he should try a sidewise swing then he must duck and strike before the giant could recover his balance.
Air droned as the staff swept towards him.
Dumarest crouched, straightened, and struck at the side of the giant's face, the end of his staff smashing against the prominent ridge of bone protecting the eye. Immediate shy;ly Gilliam turned, staff whining in a backhand blow. Duma-rest sprang from it, throwing himself behind the giant's back, poising himself with the staff held by the end in both hands, the tip well beyond his shoulder. As the giant, baffled, turned again to find his elusive opponent, Dumarest sprang forward, the staff a blur as he sent the length of wood hard against the exposed kneecap. There was a dull crack of yielding bone and Gilliam staggered, his face distorting in pain.
"Hurt," he mumbled. "Hurt!"
Dumarest struck again, viciously, using the full strength of back and shoulders. Again the staff cracked against the bro shy;ken kneecap. As it did he threw himself backward in a com shy;plete somersault, landing just beyond the reach of the giant's staff.
Gilliam sprang after him. Sprang and fell as his shat shy;tered knee refused to carry his enormous weight. As he crashed to the ground Dumarest leaped forward, staff lifted high above his head, smashing it down at the base of the muscular neck. Twice he struck. At the third blow the staff cracked and fell apart. Chest heaving, the broken end of the staff held sword-fashion in his right hand, Dumarest stepped towards the fallen giant.
Nimino caught his arm as he went to stab the splintered end into the corded throat.
"That's enough, Earl! Earl, damn you, that's enough! You've won!"
Dumarest drew air deep into his lungs and looked at the shattered staff in his hand. "He's dead?"
"Stone cold. You snapped his neck."
"Good." Dumarest lifted a hand and touched a wetness on his head. One of the giant's wild blows must have torn his scalp. He looked at the blood on his hand. How close had death been then? Quietly he said, "So I've won. Now get us out of here. All of us. The girl as well."
"And the oil," said Sheyan as he joined the group. "Don't forget the oil."
VI
"pearls," said yalung. He tilted his cupped hand, the salon light filling his palm with nacreous beauty. "They are fine but . . ." Regretfully he shook his head. "On every world there are seas and in every sea there are bivalves. They are very pretty, my dear, but I'm afraid of very little value."
"These are special," said Lallia. "And you know it."
She sat on the edge of the table, long bare legs swinging beneath the hem of an iridescent dress made of finely tanned fish skin. Three hours from Candara, bathed, her lustrous black hair piled in thick coils above her head, she had doubled her beauty.
And her boldness, thought Dumarest. He sat beside her, facing the dealer in precious stones, feeling the ache of fatigue gnaw at his bones. The fight had drained the last of his strength.
"They are special," admitted Yalung after a moment. "To you, no doubt, they are very special. To others, my dear, they are merely pearls. How did you get them from their owners?"
Lallia smiled. "I own them. They were given to me by love-sick fools. I hid them in a place only my lover shall find." Her hand reached out, the slim fingers running through Dumarest's hair.
"And the dress?" Yalung was curious.
"I wore it beneath that stinking woolen thing they made me put on. The men weren't allowed to touch me and the old biddies were satisfied as long as I didn't dazzle their men. Men!" She snorted her contempt. "Blind fools who lived in terror of imagined perils to come. The old ones were the worst, coming to me with the excuse they wanted to save me from eternal damnation. When that didn't work they tried to buy what they wanted. I took what they gave and laughed in their faces. The fools!"
"You were the fool," said Dumarest flatly. "Didn't you even think of the dangers you ran?"
"I thought a ship would come," she admitted. "I hoped every day that a trader would call. When it did I didn't even see it. They had me locked away in the dark. God, you'll never know how relieved I was to see some real men again!"
Again she reached out to caress Dumarest's hair.
"Real men," she murmured. "And one of them a very real man indeed. Tell me, lover, am I to your liking?"
"He fought for you," said Yalung. "He could have died for you. Would a man do that for someone he cared nothing about?"
"I want him to say it," she said and then, as Dumarest re shy;mained silent, "well, perhaps later. What will you give for the pearls, dealer? And don't think I'm some ignorant fool who doesn't know their real worth."
"I will give you the cost of a High passage," said Yalung. "More I cannot give."
"Then forget it." Reaching out she took the pearls from the yellow palm. "The captain will give me more than that. More than you think, perhaps." She smiled at Dumarest, her face radiant. "Can you guess, lover, at what I mean?"
Again Dumarest remained silent. Yalung said, "Tell me, girl, how did you come to be on Candara?"
"I wanted to travel the Web so I entered into a ship-marriage with an engineer. I didn't know that he rode a commune ship and he didn't tell me until we were well on our way. They share everything they own and I refused to be shared. So, when we hit Candara, they kicked me out." She laughed, remembering. "They didn't do any trade, though. I told the chief man that they practiced abominable rites and he believed me. So they went off empty-handed."
Dumarest looked at the long length of her naked thigh. "And before that?"
"You're interested, lover?" Her teeth were white against the red of her mouth. "Before that I worked in a carnival. Reading palms, that sort of thing. And before that I-"
"You read palms?" Yalung interrupted, his smile bland. "Surely not."
"I don't lie, dealer. Give me your paw and I'll tell you things." She reached out for the yellow hand as Yalung snatched it away. "No? Scared, maybe?"
"Cautious," he said, smiling. "Why don't you read the hand of our friend here?"
"Why not?" Lallia again ran her fingers through Duma-rest's hair. They were gentle, caressing. "Give me your hand, Earl." She studied it, brooding, the tips of her slender fingers tracing lines, hesitating from time to time, the touch as gentle as the impact of butterflies. "A strange hand," she murmured. "One not easy to read. There is a sense of power and a mystery hard to unravel. You have lived close to violence for a long time now, lover. You have traveled far and will travel further. You have loved and lost, and you will love again. And you have a great enemy." She sucked in her breath. "Earl! I see danger!"
"A carnival trick!" He jerked his hand away with sudden irritation. "Shall I read your palm?" He caught her hand and, without looking at the mesh of lines, said, "You have ambition. You have dreams and are never long content. You have known many men and many worlds and there are those who have reason to hate your name. You are greedy and selfish and will come to a bad end. Is that enough or do you want more?"