Astar and Isma halted in the middle of the arena. They kissed each other lightly, then each ascended her separate throne.
Blade was watching Astar, the Queen-Goddess, and he saw something that puzzled him. She stared straight ahead, her eyes half closed, and she might have been alone in Tharn. She was withdrawn, silent, distant.
It was Isma, the High Priestess, who raised her hands high and clapped them. The music altered, the trumpets more brazen now.
Isma's voice was sweet and high and commanding. 'Let the Sacer of Tharn begin,' she said. 'Bring in the Lordsmen.'
There was a hush over the vast arena. The trumpets died to whispers. Somewhere a vast door slid open and the Lordsmen marched into the arena in a column of twos. And Blade understood why Tharn was dying, and why Honcho had picked this time for its overthrow. The Lordsmen were only travesties of men. They were runts, spindly and scrawny, some ugly and misshapen, all standing under five feet. The male strain in Tharn had weakened and run out, and this was all that was left.
Marching music now. The Lordsmen circled the arena, still in twos, raising their swords to the thrones as they passed. They were dressed bravely enough in tinted armor and helmets and greaves, and each carried a square shield and a short sharp sword. Recognition clicked in Blade's mind. The Roman gladiator games. This scene was much akin.
The music died again. The Lordsmen stopped marching and formed a double rank near the thrones. The crowd of women buzzed and hummed. There was a moment of waiting. Then Isma clapped her hands again.
An old man began to materialize between the thrones. Blade knew that he was seeing simlu and for a moment his mind chilled, then he cast it off. Honcho had admitted that he could not, in person and without permission, penetrate the magveils around Urcit. He could send simlu, yes, but a simlu was harmless, lacking real power. And Honcho's spiscreens did not work in Urcit. For a time Blade had nothing to fear.
He saw now that the old man was also a neuter. The slimness, the neutral cast of features, the long green eyes were unmistakable. Yet this neuter must be very old. Its hair was gray and the face a mass of wrinkles. It was richly dressed.
The neuter was fully materialized now. It made obeisance to both Astar and Isma. Blade noted again that the Queen-Goddess did not respond, only sat unmoving and staring straight ahead. It was the High Priestess who nodded and spoke: 'Hail to you, Sutha. King of Neuters. You know your duty well. Perform it.'
Sutha bowed again, then faced the column of Lordsmen. The voice was like an ancient document, raveled and cracked and weak with age. He began to walk up and down the line of Lordsmen. Blade, watching closely, sensed that some sort of a decision was to be made. Yet it did not seem to be a serious one, for the old neuter had a half-mocking smile on his face. Blade glanced at the throne. Astar was paying no attention, but Isma was leaning forward, amusement on her face, like one who anticipates entertainment of a lighter sort.
Sutha selected the largest and strongest of the Lordsmen and placed him squarely in the center of the arena. The man stripped off his armor and weapons and piled them at his feet. He was naked now. Blade felt amusement and a trace of pity - the Lordsman was a puny thing but, such as it was, he was certainly in an erectile state. And now Sutha was positioning the other Lordsmen, one here, one there, somewhat in the manner of chessmen on a board. All stripped down as soon as they took their positions.
Blade saw and heard it then. The women! They had stopped talking and laughing among themselves, and yet there was no silence. It took him a moment to puzzle it out, then he understood: it was the sound of breathing. Just that. Hushed, expectant, excited breathing. The women kept their seats, not one arose and he supposed there was a rule about that, but each one of them was tensed and ready, an arrow on a bow string, a coiled spring. And then Blade could also smell them. Not the perfume, not the clean bodies, but women exuding the musky odor of lust.
Blade could anticipate. This was a once a year thing, and while it had comic overtones it would be deadly serious to the women involved. And, he thought with amusement, it might be dangerous to the Lordsmen. He did not think they had long to live in any case, but even that little time might be cut short.
The old neuter had finished now. He raised a hand to Isma. Astar was still taking no interest in the proceedings.
Isma in turn gestured to a neuter trumpeter who stood nearby. One blast of the trumpet.
All the women stood up.
Another blast of the trumpet.
The arena was filled with the slither and flutter of feminine clothing as it was discarded. The effect, the sound and the odor, was overpowering. The arena was one vast mass of woman flesh, naked and unshielded, muscles tensed, faces contorted. They waited. Breathing.
A final blast on the trumpet.
Blade could only compare it, a pale comparison at best, to a rush of women he had once seen in a great London store. There had been a sale going on and Blade and a friend had unwittingly gotten caught in the stampede. They had nearly been torn apart.
So it was now. At the third blast of the trumpet the women stormed into the arena like a tidal wave. Teeth glinted white and feral in contorted lovely faces; breasts of every size and type bobbled and jounced and jammed as female struggled against female.
The horde swept down and over the Lordsmen, inundating them, clawing and scratching and pushing at each other to get a man and claim him. Blood was already flowing from minor wounds. The Lordsman in the center of the arena, he first chosen by Sutha, went down under a wave of kicking legs and waving arms and tawny posteriors.
It was useless to try to watch everything at once, so Blade concentrated on the scene in the middle. Here the fight was brief enough, if rough. A tall redhead, well muscled and superbly breasted, was straddling the fallen Lordsman and beating off all comers. As soon as she had established her rights the other women fell back. By that time it was too late for them, for all the other Lordsmen had been similarly conquered and claimed.
Trumpet.
The fight was over. The losers retired to their seats and began to dress, sullen, muttering, but obeying the
