through the heart!
Because I have had the good fortune to go through the Disciplines of the Krozairs of Zy, which teach a man wrestling and unarmed combat tricks — all the martial arts — that leave the best syples of the Khamorros far in the shadows, I had been able, without actually fighting Turko, to convince him that I had the besting of him and many a high khamster.
So, Kimche and I stripped off and began and it was not made too swift and there was a deal of grunting and straining before he gave me best. I stood back.
“You fight well, Kimche. But-”
“By Likshu the Treacherous!” he panted, standing up and shaking himself like a dog run from the sea.
“You must be a Khamorro!”
“No, Kimche. I am not a Khamorro.”
“Then,” said Muvko the Breaker, stepping forward, “let us see what you can avail against a true khamster.”
Muvko was, as I had suspected, competent within the syples. Again I made nothing great of it, and the contest prolonged itself long past the moment when Turko, for one, would have had Muvko flat on his back. But it is foolish to puff up one’s abilities if there are skullduggeries to follow.
“Now may Morro the Muscle be my witness!” declared Muvko, sitting up and staring at me. “If you are no Khamorro — what manner of man are you?”
Useless to answer, “A Krozair of Zy.” So I smiled, and said, “I had luck and the knack of it, Muvko. Now, who is for ale?”
My intentions were plain to them. And, having seen me in action, they were fully in agreement.
“And when Turko returns, we will have a few words to say!”
“Aye!”
The daily downpour had come and gone outside, no doubt adding a fair quantity of fresh growth in that voracious jungle, and we started to prepare seriously for the evening’s contest. Hoping that I had not created too great an impression, I joined in. After all, ordinary wrestlers stand no real chances against Khamorros. The wagers and rules reflected this, as they would have to do. So -
how could I be explained? As a freak, that seemed the only answer, and thus I was accepted. They made plain I was standing in for Turko, and could have no share of the consortium’s profits on my own account. This seemed reasonable.
A smart trot across to the marquee of Black Algon revealed the place open and girding its magical loins for the night’s doings. Black Algon, himself, was still not there. Neither were Saenci and Turko. And Andrinos was still missing.
Back at the Golden Prychan, Kimche expressed himself of the opinion that mischief was afoot but that, by Beng Drudoj Triceps and Biceps, he had no inkling what it might be.
“Sink me!” I burst out. “If he’s got Turko and the others chained up in some infernal chundrog, I’ll-”
“So would we all, Jak, if we knew if and where!”
“There is one way to find out, a very old and still reasonably efficacious way.”
“If you can find any rast to question.”
‘True, may the black lotus-flowers of Hodan-Set breathe on the cramph!”
“Jimstye Gaptooth may know,” said Nolro. “He must put in an appearance tonight when his men fight us.”
“By Morro the Muscle! Could we do it?” demanded Muvko.
A hubbub ensued. Of one thing I was sure, in all the bicep-rolling, muscle-flexing, stomach-tautening going on around me, these fellows would be ugly customers to cross on a wet and windy night, by Krun!
Kimche, the Chulik, a man who had been trained from birth to bear weapons and who now, tuskless, worked as a wrestler in a fairground booth, struck a note of warning.
“Remember, doms! Jimstye Gaptooth employs swordsmen. Who among you can handle a blade?”
The reaction to this unwelcome reminder brought scowls and fists gripping wrists and twisting so the muscles jumped, and a coarse variety of oaths heating the atmosphere. But the fact remained and real; just as these wrestlers were masters of their craft, so swordsmen hired by Jimstye Gaptooth would be masters of theirs. Only Kimche could face them with steel in his fist, and only the Khamorros could hope to live against pointed and edged weapons with empty hands.
“I have a large club,” shouted Fat Lorgan, and his belly shook. “With a nail in the head!”
“And I a dagger,” said Sly Nath the Trivet, looking fierce.
They looked at my little arsenal stacked to hand.
“When is this expedition to be, doms?” I said.
“After the bouts, when the credulous public are all drunk and chasing women and Jimstye Gaptooth is counting his money.”
“A remarkably fitting time,” I observed.
Each office of the consortium was held by a wrestler, and they were punctilious in the discharge of their duties. They employed a tall and supercilious Ng’grogan to present a front to the public, and to call their titles and stations before the contests. He was not, this Abanch from Ng’groga, anything at all like Inch, Kov of the Black Mountains. In a spirit of devilment I offered Abanch a juicy portion of squish pie as we took our meal, the fifth or sixth of the day.
“Thank you, master Jak,” he said, and took it and wolfed it down. I waited. Abanch looked around. “Is there more? For I am inordinately fond of squish pie.”
Kimche handed across the rest.
I said, “I knew a man who stood on his head-”
“Ah!” said Abanch, and spluttered rich juice down his chin and crumbs onto the table. “He is your high and mighty, hoity-toity Ng’grogan, too good for the likes of me.”
I did not hit him. He was like Inch in only one thing; he was tall. But, in the public address he made as the crowds flocked into the enormous marquee where the contest would take place, Abanch earned his hire money. The public paid. They were mostly men, with a sprinkling of women, seafaring folk, and I did not doubt there were a number of renders among them, pirates who had crept in a longboat into some jungly creek and stolen ashore for a night’s jaunt among the flesh-pots. As for the swordshipmen, they preened in fancy uniforms and flashed their smiles and their swords and gold lace.
Many steelworkers and city folk, of course, patronized the fairground. The place was brilliantly illuminated by mineral-oil lamps, with bits of colored glass to lend a fairyland lighting. The noise was prodigious and quite drowned out the eternal sound of the sea. Refreshments were served continually, and many a honey cake was flung in the wrath of an argument along the benches. As for drink, that flowed in a broad river of ale and wine and fermented in the brains and bloodstreams of the spectators. The whole scene in the marquee was rough and rowdy and heated. Everyone hungered to see the fights. As for betting, that was a nicely calculated art and anyone whose skill was lacking would go home with his pocket linings hanging out — if he was not hit on the head in the firm belief that he walked thus to conceal the waist belt stuffed with gold and silver.
Before Abanch had finished two men were carried out, unconscious or dead, it did not seem to matter. The crowds yelled.
The contest began.
Well, by the offensive stink of Makki Grodno’s disgusting diseased liver and lights, it went ill for the consortium from the Golden Prychan.
In the singles only two of our fellows scored outright wins.
When the tag matches began we were on to a hiding to nothing.
Four of us stood on small raised platforms outside the ring, which was fenced with a single bronze chain at waist height. The canvas covered sturmwood planking, and the whole was raised a little. Four of us stood on these platforms, and four of Jimstye Gaptooth’s men stood on platforms adjacent. One from each side leaped into the ring and started to twist each other’s arms and legs off. Kimche was controlling this bout. He faced me across the canvas where squirming bodies writhed. The crowd wanted blood.
Our man, it was Sly Nath the Trivet, hoicked himself on top of his opponent and started banging his head on the canvas covered sturmwood. This was highly pleasing.
