The Chieftan

clearly not a trained wrestler, but he was unusually strong, and that made him dangerous. Ambos had no intention of taking him lightly.

“Close! Finish him!” said Pulendius.

But the two men, together in the center of the ring, only thrusted, feinted, and reached for holds.

“Finish him!” said Pulendius.

Suddenly the two men grappled, locked together, swaying back and forth.

“Finish him!” cried Pulendius.

But to the horror of Pulendius and those in the tiers the barbarian, slowly, by sheer strength, drew Ambos from his feet, and then slowly turned him, and placed his back over his knee, his hands pressing down, the knee as the fulcrum, the spine a doomed lever, subjected to terrible force at each termination, surely in a moment to snap, surely incapable of withstanding such pressure.

But then the barbarian let Ambos, gasping, wild-eyed, slip to the sand.

The barbarian rose to his feet.

“Am I not victorious?” he asked.

“You did not kill him,” observed the young naval officer.

“I did not choose to do so,” said the barbarian.

Ambos was helped from the sand by two of Pulendius’s men.

“And whom would you choose to kill?” asked the young naval officer.

“One worthy,” said the barbarian, his arms folded.

“Me?” asked the young naval officer, quietly, amused.

The barbarian turned about and lifted his arm. He pointed at the gladiator with whom we have been hitherto acquainted, he who had been raised in a small festung village, that of Sim Giadini, he who had been behind Pulendius, and to his right, on the evening of the captain’s table, he who had looked upon the officer of the court, who was even of the blood, as though she might be naught but a common slave, one such that she might be purchased in any market, and thence put to the common purposes of slaves.

“He!” said the barbarian.

“Why?” asked the young officer, puzzled.

The barbarian was silent.

“Who is he? Who do you think he is?” asked the young officer, leaning forward, keenly interested.

Again the barbarian refused to respond.

“Where are you from, fighter?” asked the young officer of the gladiator.

“From the festung village of Sim Giadini, milord,” said the gladiator. He also identified the world, but we think it best, again, at this point, in order not to anticipate, to withhold its name. It was, however, we recall, one of the claimed worlds within the imperial system.

“No,” said the barbarian. “No.”

“It will be with weapons!” said Pulendius, angrily.

“Let him live,” called a man.

“He has been victorious!” called another. “Free him!”

Pulendius looked angrily toward the source of such cries.

“Kill him!” cried a woman.

“Kill him!” cried the woman in the pantsuit.

“Kill him!” cried another woman, a young woman. The officer of the court saw that it was the salesgirl, she from the ship’s shop, from whom, earlier that day, she had made certain purchases. She had not noticed her in the tiers before. She was terribly embarrassed, now, to see her there. After all, she knew the nature of those purchases. Had the salesgirl seen her here, had she looked at her? Would she have wondered if she, from Terennia, had such things on, beneath the “same garb,” beneath the “frame-and-curtain.” But of course she did. But would the salesgirl suspect that? How embarrassing! Too, what right had the salesgirl to be here, such a person, a mere employee of the line, at an entertainment for passengers! How embarrassing, the whole business!

“Let him live!” cried a man.

“Kill him!” cried the woman in the pantsuit.

“Kill him!” cried the salesgirl.

“It will be with weapons, and we shall choose!” said Pulendius.

“The barbarian is finished now,” said the minor officer to the woman in the pantsuit.

“The short sword, without buckler,” said Pulendius.

“Excellent,” said the minor officer.

Suddenly, again, there was an unsteadiness on the tiers, and some soft cries of surprise. One of the guards went down to one knee, his balance briefly lost, and then, again, stood.

“A change in course,” explained the minor officer to the woman in the pantsuit.

To be sure, the change in course was one rather abrupt for such a ship.

“We have a dog to set on you,” said Pulendius.

There was laughter from some of his men.

“Dog!” summoned Pulendius.

The gladiator, he with whom we have been hitherto acquainted, stepped forward, over the wooden ring, onto the sand.

Women gasped, for the figure was a mighty one, that of he who had now come onto the sand, well into the light.

“I am Ortog,” said Ortog, announcing himself to the gladiator, as he had not to the others, “prince of the Drisriaks, king of the Ortungs.”

“Do you know the short sword?” asked the gladiator.

“No,” said Ortog.

“Choose some other weapon,” advised the gladiator.

“The small blade will be satisfactory,” said Ortog.

“Some regard me as reasonably skilled with the weapon,” said the gladiator.

There was laughter from the men of Pulendius.

The gladiator, you see, was, of all the school of Pulendius, he who was most skilled with that blade. It had served him well on four worlds, and in ten arenas. Pulendius had even hopes that his skills might carry him to the imperial arenas of the Telnarian worlds themselves. Often Pulendius had wondered at his almost incomprehensible aptitude with such weapons. The naturalness, the quickness, the ease, with which he handled such weapons was not to be expected in one who was a peasant. One might expect that gigantic strength to be sometimes found in a peasant but seldom, if ever, such speed, such subtlety and finesse. It was almost as if the use of such things was as natural to him as that of teeth to the vi-cat, of talons to the hawk. It was almost as though the use of such things were somehow bred in him, were somehow in the blood itself.

“I choose the short sword,” said Ortog.

“It is my assumption then,” said the gladiator, “that you are familiar with the weapon.”

Two such weapons, wrapped in scarlet silk, were brought.

The gladiator tested each, and then indicated that Ortog might have his choice of blades.

Ortog took one and backed to the opposite side of the circle.

“Is it that you wish to die?” asked the young officer of the barbarian.

“If I am to die,” said Ortog, “it is not unfitting that it be at the hands of such.”

“A common gladiator?”

“You think him such?” asked Ortog.

The young officer shrugged.

Ortog laughed, and hefted the blade. It seemed he liked its balance.

“It is much like a knife,” he said.

It did have something of the advantages of a double-edged knife, the capacity to slash on both the forestroke and the backstroke, the capacity to shift direction quickly, the capacity to thrust, at close quarters. On the other hand it had some of the advantages of the sword. It was long enough to keep a knife at bay, to outreach a knife, and to make fencing, parrying and disengaging, and such, practical.

“He is indeed a dog,” said Ortog, viewing the gladiator. “But that is not his name.”