A slight bloom of anger as Sten realized that his enemy was laughing because Sten had nothing to throw back, as if that would have done any clotting good, and the weird duel was dead-even again.
The warrior snatched up his huge spear and came running at Sten like an enormous cat. Sten ignored his own war spear, curled his fingers, and felt the tingling response and then a coldness in his hand as the knife leaped into his waiting fingers.
He stalked across the grass, bracing for the leap and the slash as the warrior hurtled toward him. Just before the collision, the warrior spun his spear end over end and then suddenly... he wasn't there.
Instinctively Sten dropped flat and rolled. And in that instant of the roll, he saw the most incredible thing: The warrior had pole-vaulted over him. Sailing, sailing, like a giant heron, over Sten's body... hitting the ground... spinning and laughing back all in one motion.
Sten back-somersaulted. And again and again like some mad tumbler, leaping more than two meters with every turn.
Stop.
Forward somersault, dodging under the spear, slicing over and downward with his knife.
And the warrior was standing there, in an instant of helplessness, gaping at his half spear. Sten tackled him, trying to put all his weight into the fall, and he heard the warrior's breath woosh out, and then Sten was astride the warrior. Knees locked on each shoulder. His knife at his enemy's throat. A long hesitation.
"Arilcia!" Sten finally said, pressing knife against skin.
The warrior looked up at him. Panting. And then a long, slow, grin. "Arilcia," he gasped. "Clotting hell! You won!"
If the warrior had taken advantage of Sten's amazement, he could have killed him on the spot.
CHAPTER FOUR
"MY FRIEND, THE gourd is with you."
"Wanna 'nother drink?"
"Clot me! Am I not circumcised? Must I wail like a woman when the elder passes?"
"Gotcha. Ya wan' 'nother drink?"
Ida took a long draw off the gourd, burped, and passed the gourd to Acauzlay. It was a neat trick, since they were sitting across a fire from each other, about a meter and a half apart. But Acauzlay, Sten's former enemy, simply hiccuped. grabbed, and chugged.
Sten had to admire the being. When you are three meters high, you have a helluva drinker's reach, among other advantages. Speaking of reach, Sten plucked the jug from his new old buddy Acauzlay and took a deep swallow, passed it on, and bleared at the scene.
Prior to his present drunkeness, Sten had learned several things. To begin with, his hard-found friends were one of many tribes on this planet. They called themselves the Stralbo. Which translated into The People of the Lake. Recalling Doc's mocking laughter over that discovery, Sten winced.
The postcombat celebration was being held in the Stralbo tribal hall, which was a single chamber the size of a warehouse. The circular "building" was made of an enormous bush. As near as Ida could tell, the bush was a single plant, thousands of years old. As generations passed, the outer edge of the bush had expanded to its present enormous size, while the inner area died back, leaving bare ground—one huge bald spot. The Stralbo had only to put a thatched roof in place to provide themselves a feasting hall.
The place was crowded with partying Stralbo. Males and females all getting drunk on their thin (but highly alcoholic) grain beer and telling lies about what great warriors they were.
Acauzlay thumped Sten in the ribs and passed him a big foul-smelling pot. Sten took it. raised it to his lips, and smothered a gag. The pot was filled with a grayish-pink matter with large globules of stringy red floating and bubbling about.
"The drink of life," Acauzlay said by way of encouragement.
Sten contemplated his own life and liver, then sipped. The smell and flavor hit him like a missile.
"Thanks." Sten croaked to Acaulay. and passed the pot to Doc, who looked at him with pleading in his eyes.
For a moment Sten almost sympathized. Then he remembered the mocking laughter and gave Doc a grin. "Delicious." he said.
Doc suppressed a shudder and drank. And a remarkable thing happened: For the first time since they'd met. Sten saw Doc beam. Beam without benefit of tragedy or gore. Doc took another gulp. Nemli. the Stralbo chieftain, almost had to rip the pot away to enjoy his own "drink of life."
"What is that stuff?" Sten whispered.
"Blood and milk," Doc said with unseemly satisfaction. Then he smacked his lips.
"You're... smapsolute... I mean... absoluteshly... Clot it. You're right. It's delushhious."
Doc burped and grabbed the pot back from his host, Nemli. Guzzled the vile mixture down.
Sten was in awe. Doc was drunk. From the blood. Then he understood. As one of evolution's most perfect carnivores. Doc was in butcher's heaven. The blood was hitting him like 200-proof alcohol.
"Sm-watch schmiling at you... foul hu... hu... human?"
Doc glared at Sten and turned to Nemli. Patted him on the knee with a tiny paw.
"Ya" know." Doc said, "you're not too... uh... bad... for a life-form. Now gimme that pot back."
"Aye, and it must be a lone life y' be livint, lass. Herdin' thae bloody great coos, wi' nae boot the wind in y'r ear ae company."
Alex placed a sympathetic hand on the tawny knee of Diln. one of the Stra'bo women. She patted his hand back, her palm engulfing even one of Alex's huge meat hooks. She was thanking him for his understanding.
"What is a woman to do?" she asked. "Hour after hour staring at the buttocks of beasts. Once in a doublemoon I get to practice my javelin throwing on a hungry Tsar-cat..."
She drank deeply. Wiped away a tear. She lowered her voice to a soft whisper.
"But I have dreams," she said.
Alex smiled, moved closer.
"You promise you will not laugh if I tell you?"
Alex nodded a solemn promise. Fingers tracing the knee a little higher.
"I dream that somewhere, someplace, there is a strong and handsome enemy. An enemy just for me. Who will love me and I can love in the killing."
She gave Alex a deep soulful look. Alex slowly pulled his hand away.
"Do you think." she began, then: "No. I could never ask. I am still an unblooded warrior. How could a man like you..."
Alex tried to be kind.
"Nae. lass, it cannae be. Ahm beit sorry, but we must be friends noo. Nae more."
Diln sighed a maidenly sigh of disappointment, belched, and passed the gourd back to Alex to drink.
"Fascinating," Bet said. "Fascinating."
She politely covered a yawn. It wasn't just the beer, although beer had always made Bet sleepy. It was the beer plus her companion. Acauzlay.
The warrior Sten had defeated was the tribe's champion. And as champion, it was also his duty to be the Stralbo historian. Just then he was giving Bet a thrust-by-parry account of the tribe's beginnings.
The history of Stralbo was its wars. Normally there was nothing Bet liked better than war stories. But some time ago. the Stralbo and the other tribes had realized that the millennia of slaughter had to stop. Still, there remained the problem of how young warriors could be blooded, to become adult men and women. Thus the creation of the highly formalized champion-against-champion combat.
The ritual. Bet guessed, had begun about two hundred thousand years ago. And Acauzlay knew the details of each combat. It was a strange kind of a Jacob begat whomever history.
"... And then in the year of the burning grass." Acauzlay droned on. "Meinlers slew Callicut and there was a great feasting... In the following year. Chlintu slew the Stralbo champion, Shhunlte, and there was a great mourning..."