by John Norman
"Kill him, kill him, kill him!" cried Gito, back by the door. "Do not wait! Kill him!"
In the commotion even those of the black tunics who had been in the corridor had entered the room. Indeed, some had set aside their bows, to assist in the subduing of the pit master. Two, however, remained at the door. I had noted the anguish with which some of my sisters in bondage had observed this. They could not run past the men. They would remain, as we, the rest of us, slave girls kneeling in a cell, bound, our disposition, our lives, in the hands of men. And I am certain that they were as alarmed as I to be where we were. I think it required no great perception to understand that we beheld, unwilling though we might be, sensitive matters, matters which might prove delicate, matters which might deal, even, with states.
One of the girls sprang to her feet and ran toward the door, but she was caught there, and held for a moment, and then flung back, forcibly, cruelly, to the stones and straw.
She lay there, her wrists bound tightly behind her back with simple, common cord, sobbing.
And if she were to run, where would she go, nude and bound, in the depths? Would she not be stopped by the first gate? There would be no escape for her, neither here nor elsewhere, no more than for us. We were collared. We were branded. We were slave girls.
We feared, being where we were, seeing what we had seen. We feared the black-tunicked men. We feared that we might be disposed of. Perhaps it would be decided that we had seen too much. Yet we understood, surely, little, if anything, of what we had seen. How absurd, if for so little, not even comprehended, our throats might be cut! No wonder we were so miserable, so frightened!
The peasant stood there now like a beast at bay. From the shackles on his left and right ankles there hung, their links on the stone, broken chains. Another chain dangled from the ring on the collar on his neck. A link had snapped, but the plate behind him on the wall, too, was half pulled out from the stone. His wrists were still shackled. He did not know that there was an opened link on the chain that held his right wrist. It might have been simply slipped from its joining link. But he did not know this. And the chain on his left wrist still went back to the metal plate, pulled out, though it was, an inch or so from the wall. It seemed the bolt behind the stone had drawn tight against the stone and it could not move further, not without pulling the very stone itself from the wall.
"Bowmen," said the leader of the strangers. The two bowmen advanced. Then they stopped, and set, left feet forward, right feet back, crosswise, braced. The peasant hurled himself again against the chains which held him back. The bowmen were no more than a yard from the peasant. The only light in the cell was from the two lanterns, and the tiny lamps. There were several men about. We knelt back, and to the side. Again the peasant, bellowing, threw himself against the chains. We shrank back, frightened. "He is strong," said a man. Again the peasant hurled himself against the chains. "Kill him," cried Gito. "Kill him, quickly!" "He is chained," the leader of the strangers reminded Gito. "Kill him!" urged Gito. "Prepare to fire," said the leader of the strangers. The bows were lifted. Again the peasant threw himself against the chains. Save for the metal band, the bow, or spring, mounted crosswise, now drawn, and the cable, arched back, the devices, with their triggers and stocks, were not unlike stubby rifles. They were small enough to be concealed beneath a cloak. "Kill him!" cried Gito. Again the peasant threw himself against the chains. I saw the one link bend more. We heard part of the stone scrape outward in the wall. "Kill him," cried Gito. "Kill him, quickly!" "No!" cried the pit master. Again the peasant threw himself against the chains. There was a sound of tortured metal, a scraping of stone. The entire block of stone in which the plate and ring was fixed on the peasant's left, our right, had inched out. "Kill him, kill him!" screamed Gito.
"Take aim," said the leader of the strangers quietly.
"No!" cried the pit master.
The two bowmen trained their weapons on the heart of the peasant.
The officer of Treve stood quietly, angrily, to the side, restrained by two men. His blade, his fingers pried from the hilt, one by one, was at his feet. That mound of a human being which was the pit master struggled. Six men clung to him. Fina was sobbing.
The leader of the strangers, stood to one side. He and the lieutenant, now that the pit master was restrained, had sheathed their blades.
"Do not kill him!" said the pit master, moving like a part of the earth beneath those who clung to him.
"Kill him! Kill him quickly!" screamed Gito, from the back.
Again the peasant threw his weight against the chains. There was another sound of metal and rock.
The leader of the strangers smiled. He lifted his hand.
"No!" cried the pit master.
The two bowmen tensed, their fingers on the triggers, their quarrels aligned to the heart of the peasant.
I saw the chains straighten, the rings straighten; the plate on our right, the peasant's left, out from the stone, and the very stone in which it was fastened, too, drawn an inch or more out from the wall, and the other chain, too, I saw, it still fastened to its ring and plate, these tight on the stone, but there, too, the stone itself, the heavy block of stone in which the bolts of the plate were set, was, like the other, with a scraping and a powder of mortar, a rumbling grating, another granular inch or more emergent from the wall.
Again the peasant lunged against his chains, and there was a squeal of metal and there was, as though reluctant, crying out, protesting, another tiny yielding, a grating of stone, another tiny movement, another tiny fearful slippage, of a ponderous block of stone.
"Do not kill him!" screamed the pit master.
"Shoot!" cried Gito. "Shoot!"
The hand of the leader of the strangers raised just a little, preparatory presumably to its sharp descent, doubtless to be consequent upon the issuance of a word of command.
He smiled.
The chains were tight, straight from the wall. The peasant seemed like a crazed animal, gigantic, leaning forward, straining, bulging with muscle and hate.
"Glory to the black caste," said the leader of the strangers.
"Glory to the black caste!" said the black-tunicked men.
The hand of the leader of the black-tunicked men lifted a bit more. His lips parted, to utter the signal that would unleash the quarrels.
"Aargh!" cried one of the bowmen reeling back, his face a mass of blood within the helmet, the quarrel slashing into the wall to the right of the prisoner, gouging the wall, showering sparks and the other, too, was buffeted to the side by his fellow, his own quarrel spitting, too, to the side, to the peasant's right, striking the wall, bursting stone from it like a hammer, flashing sparks in the cell, then turning end over end, sideways, eccentrically, to our left. The block of stone, broken from the wall, torn out of it, still fixed to the plate and bolts, and chain, had burst forth, showering mortar in the room. As it had left the wall it had, with all the violence of the forces imposed upon it, whipped to the peasant's right, striking the nearest bowman on the side of the head. It had split the helmet and, in the instant before it had split, the metal had been flattened, the skull crushed within. The lights were wild in the cell, the two lanterns being jerked back by those who held them, the light of the tiny lamps obscured by moving bodies. Wild shadows moved about.
"Blades!" I heard. "Lanterns up!"
A dozen blades must have left sheaths.
We screamed. We shrank back. We huddled together, back against the wall.
We then saw, in the light of the swinging lanterns, in the light of the small lamps, the men drawn back, the peasant, standing where he had been, but now bent over, his eyes wild, like something that had tasted blood, a long-forgotten taste, but one which induced a wild intoxication. He was still held to the wall by the right wrist. I doubted that chain could hold him longer now. He jerked back the stone on the chain still clinging to his left wrist. Men leaped back, not to be caught in the trajectory of that jagged, ponderous weight. The one b
owman had crawled to the side. "Cut him down!" said the leader of the black-tunicked men. A man advanced, but leaped back as the block of stone on its chain whirled again through the air. It might have been a meteor on a chain. The peasant gave another great cry and with his right arm he lunged against the chain that still held him. The weakened link, that which could have been slipped earlier, it having been opened, but that not known to him, now parted so that the chain was broken.
"He is free," said a man, in awe.
"The chains were tampered with," said another.
Even the pit master seemed in awe. He no longer struggled. Those who were with him seemed scarcely now to restrain him. The officer of Treve, too, seemed staggered by what he had seen. His sword, which had been pried from his hand, lay at his feet.
"He cannot escape," said the leader of the strangers, calmly. "Kill him."
The peasant, now that his hands were free from the wall, took, with both hands, the chain which was on his left wrist, that to which the block of stone was still bolted.
He lifted the stone easily from the floor. It swung on the chain, about six inches from the floor. He was bent over. He was breathing heavily.
None of the men cared to advance.
Gito crept behind the men to our left, and crouched down, by the wall.
The peasant suddenly swung the great stone on its chain about his head in a wicked whirling circle. He stepped out a yard from the wall. The men drew back. Some went to the side. Then the peasant retreated to the wall. His eyes, wolflike, looked to the left and right. He would not permit them behind him. If he should strike a man, of course, that might stop the stone, or even tangle the chain, providing the others with the opportunity they needed, blades ready, to close. But none cared, it seemed, to be the first to tread within the orbit of that fierce satellite, that primitive, improvised weapon.
"You, you," said the leader of the strangers to two of his men. "Sheath your swords, set your bows."
The two men, protected behind their brethren, unslung their bows. Some such weapons are set by a windlass, but those these men carried were more swiftly prepared for fire. They could be drawn with two hands, the bow held down, a foot in the stirrup. It would take a moment, of course, to free the bow, to draw it, to set it, to extract a quarrel from the quiver, to arm it. The long bow, naturally, has a much greater rapidity of fire. This bow, on the other hand, once set, like a firearm, remains ready for fire. It is useful in cramped spaces, in close quarters, in room-to-room fighting. It is an alert weapon, responsive to the trigger; its opportunity need not be more prolonged than the movement of the target across a passageway; it is a patient weapon; it can wait quietly, motionlessly, for a long time, for its target to appear. The two new bowmen set their feet in the bow stirrup, grasping the cable with two hands, one on each side of the guide.
Suddenly, crying out, realizing somehow, in some dark part of that simple brain, in some instinctive fashion, that he had not a moment to spare, risking all, heedless of his back, swinging the stone about his head, the peasant, chains flying about his ankles, charged toward the bowmen. His action, as sudden as it was, took the black-tunicked men by surprise. They fell back before him. The one bowman, his foot locked in the stirrup, looked up only in time to see the great stone whipping toward him; the other was protected by his fellow who received the blow, but, he, too, his foot in the stirrup, fell awkwardly to the side. He cried out in pain. "Blades! Close with him! Close with him!" cried the leader of the strangers. But the stone on its chain, the peasant whirling with it, spun about and about. I saw flesh fly from the thigh of one of the men. He staggered back. Blood splashed on the man to the right of the officer of Treve, he holding his right arm. The sword lay still at the officer's feet. The pit master suddenly, again, began to struggle. The six men about him tightened their grip, clinging to him tenaciously. They clung to him like dogs to a bull. He struggled to throw them from him. The bowman who had been struck lay to one side, his head awry, too far back, still in the helmet, half torn from the body. Swords darted at the peasant but none reached him, he protected in the whirling shield of chain and stone. And then the stone struck against the side of the portal and the stone burst from the portal, a cubic foot of wall there broken from its place, but the stone, too, on the chain, shattered, splitting at the bolts, and fell in two halves away. The chain on his wrists flew about. That to which the ring and plate was attached, bolts still on the plate, struck a fellow across the face, lashing him back. And then the peasant was back again, at bay, against the wall. We cried out, we sobbed with fear. Gito was hiding himself in straw to the left of the portal as one would enter.
"The stone is done now," said the leader of the black-tunicked men, himself now straightening up, lowering the sword he had held before his face, two hands on the hilt. "The chains are nothing."
The peasant was breathing heavily. The door was in front of him, but men with blades blocked his passage.
"Four will advance," said the leader of the strangers. "You, and you, will engage," he said, to two of his men, near him, on the right side of the room, as one would enter it.
"And you, and you," said the lieutenant, to two of the men on his side of the room, the left, as one would enter.
The peasant looked wildly about himself.
He could not defend himself, he substantially defenseless now, against these blades. The chain might be evaded, or it might be stopped or turned, or tangled, by a blade. Too, as he would move to defend himself on one side, the other would close.
"He is dead," said the leader of the strangers, quietly.
Suddenly the officer of Treve kicked the sword at his feet, that which had been earlier pried from his hand, toward the peasant. It slid across the stone. The peasant looked down at it.
"Position to advance," said the leader of the strangers.
The four men formed, one ahead on each side.
"Pick it up!" said the officer of Treve.
The pit master, held by the men at him, looked to the officer of Treve, wildly, gratefully, elatedly.
The peasant bent down and picked up the blade. He looked at it, almost as if he did not understand such a thing. I supposed he may never have had such a thing in his hand before.
The four men prepared to advance looked to one another, and to their captain.
"You do not understand such a thing," said the leader of the strangers to the peasant. "You are of the Peasants. It is not for your caste. Your weapon is the great staff, perhaps the great bow. You are of the Peasants. You do not know that weapon. You are of the Peasants. Remember you are of the Peasants."
"Yes," said the giant before us. "I do not know this thing. I am of the Peasants."
"Advance," said the leader of the strangers to the four men.
I gasped.
The first darting stroke toward the peasant had been parried smartly.
I had scarcely followed either the thrust or its turning. That single, sharp ringing of steel seemed to linger in the cell.
"Do you call this a weapon?" asked the peasant. "It is only a knife. Yet it is quick. It is very quick."
"Strike!" said the leader of the strangers.
Another man lunged forward and again the blow was turned, almost as though one might blink an eye, by reflex.
"I do not know this thing," said the peasant, looking at the blade, curiously.
Another fellow thrust but this time the thrust was not merely parried. The attacker lay to the peasant's right, his knees drawn up. He coughed blood into the straw.
"But it is quick," said the peasant. "It is quick."
"Attack, attack!" cried the leader of the strangers.
Steel rang out by the wall of the cell. I think I heard blades cross seven or eight times.
Black-tunicked men drew back. Another of their fellows lay in the straw.
"He is a master," said a man, in awe.
Suddenly the pit master, with a great cry, with a great surge of strength, like a moving mounta
in, like a pain-crazed, maddened bull, threw from him the black-tunicked men who held him, as the mountain might have uprooted trees and tumbled boulders to the valley below, as the bull, rearing up, tossing its head, might have shaken itself free of besetting dogs.
At the same time the officer of Treve threw the two from him who had held him.
The pit master tore a lantern from the hand of a man and dashed it against the wall. Oil flamed for a moment, running on the wall. He then, with one hand, smote lamps from the wall, tearing them away from their holders. The second lantern was seized by the officer of Treve and dashed to the floor. Flame flickered in the damp straw, then disappeared. The last lamp, to the left, as one would enter, was struck from its holder. I heard one of the girls cry out, scalded by the splashing oil. The flame did not take in the damp straw.
"Light! Light!" cried the leader of the strangers.
We heard a man cry out with pain.
In a moment or two one of the lamps was found and lit.
One of the black-tunicked men lay in the portal, his chest bright with blood.
"Where is the prisoner!" demanded the leader of the strangers.
"He is gone," said a man.
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