"No!" Zucco backed faster, face distorted with terror as he read the grim, unrelenting purpose in Dumarest's mind. "No!"
Steel clashed as he parried, a thin red line marring the smoothness of his torso, another gaping just below the throat to add its carmine stream to the smears staining the chest and stomach. Blood stained the shorts and laced the oiled flesh.
"No!" Zucco screamed as again he felt the ice-burn of shearing metal. A shallow cut to join the rest but the wound to his self-confidence was far deeper. "Dear, God-no!"
A man facing death, knowing it, feeling the terror he had so often induced in others. His nerve broke as again Dumarest sent his blade to cut a furrow in the oiled skin.
He would be flayed, crippled, maimed, blinded-things Zucco could read in Dumarest's mind. A mind without mercy, cold in its determination, maintaining a single red image as his body moved on an instinctive level, robbing Zucco of his advantage.
Turning he ran toward the mouth of the tunnel, screaming as Dumarest reached him, gripped his hair, turned him to stand, face tilted upward, the point of his knife at the straining throat.
"Talk," snarled Dumarest. "Talk!"
Before he sent the blade upward, the point slicing through skin and fat and tissue. Driving up through the lower jaw, through the tongue, up into the palate, the sinus cavities, the brain itself.
A slow and lingering way to end.
"No," said Zucco. "Don't." He was helpless, his own knife lying where he had thrown it on the sand, already, in imagination, feeling the slow thrust of the threatening blade. "No," he said again. "It's not what you think. I-"
He broke off, rearing, eyes wide, the sudden convulsion racking his body causing his spine to arch in a bow, which snapped forward to send his head down, driving his throat hard against the needle point of Dumarest's knife.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Reiza said, "You murdered him! Murdered him-you bastard!" She faced Dumarest in the tunnel, radiating her fury. An emotion which distorted her face and made it ugly. "He was unarmed, helpless, at your mercy. Begging, even, I saw his face. And you killed him. Butchered him!"
"No," said Valaban. "He committed suicide. Shoved his own throat against the blade."
"Liar!"
"If you say so." Valaban shrugged. "What does it matter? The right man died."
"You filth! Jac was murdered!"
"Yes," said Dumarest. "He was. But not by me." He held out his clenched left hand, turning it, opening it to show the dart resting on his palm. A sliver of wood tufted at one end the point dark with blood. "This did it. I took it from his body."
Outside there was noise as the crowd, the entertainment over, moved back to work. Already Zucco's body had been removed, attendants raking the sand and hiding the soil of combat. But in the tunnel it was quiet, a silence broken only by the restless padding of the feline Valaban had treated. Recovered now from the gas and sensing the tension.
Dumarest allowed that tension to grow as he stood, saying nothing, the dart on his palm. Reiza had backed away to stand beside Valaban. Dim gleams from the shadows revealed where Shakira stood, watching. Aside from them the area was deserted.
Then Valaban gave a curt laugh. "So someone put a dart in him. I'd say, Earl, you had a friend in the crowd."
"A handy thing to have. But why did he wait so long?"
"Who knows? Maybe Zucco was moving too fast. Or you were figured to win. Or-hell, pick your own reason."
"I have." Dumarest tossed the dart into the air and watched as it fell to the floor. "Zucco wasn't hit earlier because he was too difficult a target. Whoever fired that dart had to wait until he came close. Almost here to the tunnel, in fact."
"But that's crazy! You had him at your mercy-why should anyone want to hit him then? You didn't need any help."
Moving forward Shakira said, "What you're saying, Earl, is that someone here fired that dart."
"Yes."
"Who?" Reiza was loud in her demand. "Who killed Jac? What kind of filth would murder a helpless man?"
"You, perhaps."
"Me?"
"A woman scorned," said Dumarest. "You turned against me because you thought I'd been with Melome. Maybe you heard what Jac told me in the ring or maybe he'd told you earlier. To him you were nothing. You could have realized that and remembered what happened to Hayter and why. Or perhaps you were promised more than he could offer."
"I'm no harlot!"
"You helped him. You took me to Krystyna for the reading after he'd told her what to say. Things he'd learned in the sump when he amused himself with that wand." Dumarest's voice thickened with anger at the memory. "He acted too bold for him to be wholly what he seemed. Knew too much for a man in his position. In the ring, after I discovered the truth about him, things fell into place. But something didn't fit. There was no need for Krystyna to die."
"She was old," said Reiza. "It was a natural death."
"She was poisoned." Dumarest was blunt. "Someone gave her a snack with an added content. A generous gesture from someone she had reason to trust. A mistake, as was killing Zucco."
Valaban said, "No mistake, Earl. He was killed in order to save your life."
"No. He was killed to shut his mouth."
"That's ridiculous!"
"Zucco could have killed me at the first engage," said Dumarest. "He knew I was going to attack and how. He could have struck home but instead he merely parried. A good fighter, even an expert one, would never have taken such a chance. The job is to kill fast and have done with it. To do otherwise is to invite disaster."
"Are you saying Jac wasn't a good fighter?" Reiza snapped the question. "He was a champion."
Now he was dead; a thing Dumarest didn't mention. Instead he said, "Zucco was playing with me. As a sadist he couldn't help himself. He wanted to see me sweat, hear me beg. That's why, when he was cut, he didn't cut too deep. He wanted to savor every moment while keeping to his contract. From his point of view it was a good one. I was to be crippled but not killed."
"Why?"
"Isn't it obvious?" Dumarest met her eyes. "I would be helpless, drugged, neatly wrapped and stored for later collection. Zucco would have his fun, his revenge, you and control of the circus. A pity it didn't work out that way. From your point, that is, you would have made a fine pair."
"The best!" She drew in her breath, chest heaving. "He was right-I was always his woman!"
Dumarest shrugged.
"It's the truth!" Her voice rose with the need to emphasize the statement. Behind her, in its cage, the great cat ceased its pacing and halted, glaring with baleful eyes. "You were an incident, a momentary madness, just as he said. A novelty which quickly palled. You and that freak! Jac would never have looked at her. He was my kind of man."
"Then why did you help to kill him?"
"I didn't!"
"You helped the one who did. Who gave you that snack to take to Krystyna?"
"It was harmless! Val-" She broke off and turned to glare at the old man. "You!"
"Shut up, Reiza!"
"You gave it to me. Her favorite, you said. Bastard! You killed her!"
"As he killed Zucco," said Dumarest. "With a dart. One like that he fired at your cat. Remember?"
She screamed in a sudden convulsion of rage, rearing, seeming to arch her back, spitting like one of the cats she knew so well. A reactive gesture as was the extension of her hands, the fingers curved into claws. The polish on her long, sharp nails gleamed like metal.