by Brian Lumley
“Let any challenger come forward now, and let him know that Northan fights to the death!”
Suddenly white, the young brave stepped back and quickly disappeared in the crowd, his nerve broken. Northan’s grin returned and again his fierce eyes, swept the hall. And still I waited, for I knew that the ritual demanded that a challenge be made. In threatening a fight to the death, surely the warlord had put paid to any plans he might previously have made for one of his own men to take up the challenge.
Then that which I had waited for happened; Armandra’s thoughts rushed in upon me. I stared at her and slowly her head lifted. She gazed straight into my eyes.
“If you hold back much longer, Hank Silberhutte, the council might declare me Northan’s woman without the ritual being fully completed. They are eager to have me wed.”
“I hold back for one reason only, Armandra, and you know that reason. I would be no mate to crawl to you when you fancied me, to father your children and then be pensioned off with a seat on the Council of Elders If I’m to be a husband then I will be a husband, not some sort of privileged lapdog!”
Now the elders of the council had moved forward to stand at the foot of the dais. They turned outward, facing the crowd. Armandra’s anger flooded into my mind for an instant before she cried out; “Oh, you fool! Do you not know why I dared not let you look into my thoughts? I am a woman, Hank Silberhutte, but a woman can have thoughts as lustful as any man!”
And now Northan had finally seen the two of us staring intently at each other. His lips drew back in warning and his eyes slitted with fury. I felt the hate radiating from him. The spokesman of the elders stepped up beside the warlord and Armandra. He raised his arm, opened his mouth to speak—
“I challenge you, Northan,” I shouted, moving forward. “I challenge your right to this woman and will fight you, with any weapons you choose, for the glory of the plateau and its people!”
From behind me, completely dry and without banter, I heard Whitey whisper, “If we ever get back to Earth, that’s fifty dollars you owe me, Jimmy. Never bet against a hunchman!”
Tracy breathlessly added, “And a hundred to me. I guess you just don’t know Hank, Jimmy.” Then their whispers were drowned out in the wild and amazed clamor that roared up from the thronging audience.
Part Three
I
Northan-Traitor!
(Recorded through the Medium of Juanita Alvarez)
At first I thought that Northan would explode. His mouth fell open and his eyes bulged in outrage and disbelief He let go of Armandra’s arm and began to descend the dais steps; then, noticing the way I was dressed—my sandals, soft leather trunks and fur-collared jacket—his eyes narrowed craftily. For a split second he paused, seeming to ponder something, and then his astonishment and rage appeared to increase twofold.
The spokesman of the elders had now left the dais but Northan’s shout stopped him in his tracks as he hurried out of the chalked combat area. “You there, elder! Do you see how this man mocks the Woman of the Winds, how he ridicules this ancient ceremony? He is recently come to us, and yet his attitude is not nearly what it should be. He even dares resent my authority as Warlord of the Plateau! Look at him. He is not dressed for combat, and if he were I could hardly lower myself to accept his challenge. He should not be in a position to lay claim to the lowliest, most miserable whore from the barracks areas, and yet here he is, offering himself as a mate for the Woman of the Winds! This is more than mere mockery,” his voice lifted to a bellow of artificial outrage. “It is insolence—defilement!”
Now I knew what the warlord was up to, and as he finished speaking I saw a nodding of heads among his cronies. Even one or two of the elders seemed to be in agreement with him, much to the obvious disgust of others, particularly Charlie Tacomah. Well, Northan had had his say, now it was my turn. Before the elder he had addressed could answer him, I spoke up.
“Elder,” I began, speaking to the same old man, “in the Motherworld I was a leader of men, not given to accepting insults from puffed up dogs. I do not intend to lower my standards here on Borea. While it disgusts me to soil myself in combat with such as your present warlord, if that is the only way to elevate my position to one of acceptable status, I am prepared to do so.” I allowed a moment for that to sink in, then continued. “Over and above the question of mere position, however, there is the fact that I believe I am in love with the Woman of the Winds. Because of this, I cannot stand and watch Northan take her unchallenged. If she is the prize of this contest, then I can imagine no more desirable prize. It is one which I will treasure always.” Again I briefly paused.
“I have been given to understand it is desirable that Armandra has children, that the Council of Elders has long been pressing her to wed. In the interest of the plateau I ask you this question: are your future princes to be strutting peacocks and boasters, or great men with powers as great as, and perhaps greater than their mother’s own? That is the difference between Northan taking Armandra to wife, and—”
“I have heard of your so-called ‘powers,’ you dollop of—” Northan bellowed in genuine fury, until I stilled his tongue by turning my back on him. I addressed the thronging People of the Plateau now, letting them see that plainly the warlord was beneath my contempt.
“But if you, the people, or if Armandra herself has any objection to my challenging Northan, then I will withdraw my challenge, however reluctantly.”
Now this was what Northan himself had tried to do with his blustered insults; place Armandra in a position to refuse me as a prospective champion, on the grounds that I was unsuitable and beneath her contempt, without breaking any of the ceremonial rules of conduct. He had suspected something and wanted to see how the land lay between us, to see if she really did find my challenge objectionable.
She had not risen to Northan’s bait; she had held her tongue. Well, I too had wanted the warlord to know the lay of the land, and so I had answered him myself, trying to force Armandra’s hand. Now we both looked to her for an answer, and finally she said, “You are both strong, able men. I have no preference, for I am the Woman of the Winds and above such things. There is no objection to either one of you, or to any man who would fight to be my champion.”
“Liar!” I told her with a sharp thought.
“I cannot completely alienate the warlord,” she answered.
“Alienate him? He might kill me!”
“You must not let him—and you must not kill him! For all his strutting he, leads the warriors well and is no coward in battles.”
Meanwhile Northan had stepped slowly, menacingly down, approaching until we were face to face. I could almost see the dark thoughts revolving in his head. While he had insulted me, I had doubly insulted him; Armandra’s little speech had told him nothing, had been completely unsatisfactory, merely explaining her acceptance of the ancient code. Things were not the way he would have them; his anger was now very real, and his face black as thunder. He clenched and unclenched his great hands.
“Will you not dress yourself for battle before I kill you. Earthman?” he ground the words out.
“I came into the Motherworld naked, Northan,” I told him evenly. “These few rags should not hinder my exit from Borea, even if I were ready to make one. I choose to fight as I stand, unless your choice of weapon is the cutting whip, in which case I will dress as you are dressed.”
“Then let’s get it over with quickly,” he snarled, hurriedly stripping himself of his armor and hurling each piece away. “If you’re afraid of the whip—”
“I don’t fear the whip,” I cut him off, “but whips are for dogs, not men.”
“Then let it be the handaxe,” he snarled. “Either way, you die!”
Handaxes! I would rather have had unarmed combat, in which I had trained on Earth for eleven years, but if it had to be with weapons then the handaxe suited me as well as any other.
From somewhere close at hand two young Indian boys brought a golden tray
bearing a pair of matched, highly decorated but nevertheless deadly, picklike handaxes. The head of each was burnished until it shone, displaying a fine cutting edge on the wide blade, and a needle tip at the end of the rearward spine. I saw that this slender, piercing spine was barbed and cut with runners to keep blood from flowing down the shafts of the weapons to the hands of their users. I looked at the things for a long moment, and as Northan noticed the expression on my face he grinned, regaining a little of his composure.
The tray was placed on the floor between us and two more youths brought an iron chain with a manacle at each end. These clasps were secured to our left wrists. Now we were tied together, with seven or eight feet of chain between us. I waited uneasily for someone to explain the rules but apparently there were none, or I should already be in possession of them.
“Are you ready?” Armandra’s voice came from the dais, trembling a little. Northan went into a crouch above the golden tray, resting the wrist of his free right hand lightly on his right knee. I followed suit. This was it then. Obviously no rules were necessary; they would be self-explanatory.
The warlord’s eyes flicked sideways as he watched Armandra. I watched her too. She stood with a square of some fine weave in her hand, held high. “When I drop the cloth, Hank Silberhutte, take up your weapon—swiftly!”
It was an effort to stop myself nodding. I flicked my gaze from Armandra to Northan and saw the muscles standing out along his shoulders and arms; his right hand trembled over his knee in tension. Sweat suddenly burst out upon his brow. I could feel cold sweat pouring down my own face and arms.
“Now!” came Armandra’s mental warning—and yet it was no real warning for she dropped the square simultaneously with her thought.
As if in slow motion I saw Northan’s hand reaching down for his weapon, the glint of a razor-honed edge as the handaxe rose up and back as if with a life of its own. At the same time I took up my own weapon, feeling the shaped grip in my hand like something alive.
Then Northan jerked on the chain and I shot forward, already off balance. I saw his eyes burning fiercely as his weapon began to descend, instinctively threw myself into a dive. I passed straight between his spread legs, dragging his chained arm down and deflecting the blow he aimed at my back.
Sprawling behind him I yanked on the chain, but Northan had played this game before. He instantly tucked his head between his legs and flipped over onto his back, rolling as I directed a swift blow at the wrist of his weapon hand. My handaxe brought sparks from the floor as he jerked his wrist out of harm’s way. We got to our feet together, the warlord immediately stepping forward to swing his weapon horizontally, hauling on the chain at the same time to bring me within reach.
I arched my back, felt the sharp leading edge of Northan’s weapon slice a shallow groove along my belly, yanked down with my left hand to bring the warlord forward and block any backhand blow he might have planned, then leaned into a sideways swipe at his legs below the knees. He sprang high, grunting as my weapon swished through empty air.
The silence of the crowd was broken now by a succession of concerted sighings and moanings, the hissing of sharply indrawn breath. I took what little pleasure I could in the fact that what concern was being shown was mainly for me; the warlord’s popularity was nothing to envy. His enemies, usually silent, were more vociferous now in the passion and excitement of the spectacle.
As we circled each other with the chain stretched between us, I noted the warlord’s attitude of merciless, murderous intent. There was absolutely no doubt in Northan’s mind that he would win this contest. My physical strength was greater than his, true—and he doubtless recognized that fact, however grudgingly—but his skill and experience were making me look amateurish.
So far I had been lucky: Northan had only cut me once, not seriously. Could it be that he was playing with me? Well, one way or the other, the thing must be gotten over with quickly. While the Borean warlord’s skill would not diminish, my strength certainly would. In any event, brute strength can rarely compete for very long against experienced dexterity.
And as that last thought entered my head I stumbled sideways into the bottom step of the dais and went sprawling headlong. Northan had waltzed me right into it, had planned it this way, knowing I would trip myself up. All right, then let him believe that his plan had worked even better than he expected, that things were worse for me than they really were.
I forced myself to go limp on the steps. Sprawling there, I put on a look of uncomprehending, dazed bafflement. This was the work of only a second, and I never once took my eyes off the warlord.
He laughed wildly, leaping to the attack, his arm lifting to deliver the final stroke. At the last moment I threw up my own weapon to ward off the descending blow, and at the same time I threw a loop of the chain about Northan’s neck. Twisting the chain, I hugged him to me.
Now I could use my strength. Gripping the chain tighter where it circled Northan’s neck, I flipped him over onto his back. I locked his right arm with my own weapon and quickly trapped his right wrist in a second, smaller loop of chain. Then I applied pressure with both arms, throttling my victim while dragging him backward up the dais steps.
Choking out curses and obscenities, the warlord flopped up the steps after me, still attempting to impale me on the spine of his weapon with repeated flicks of his trapped wrist. Near the top of the steps I put an end to that by wrapping my legs about his arm. Now his left hand stretched blindly up between my legs, reaching for me with hooked fingers. I freed my handaxe, transferred both loops of chain to my left hand and struck at Northan’s left elbow with the flat of my weapon. He howled as his arm vibrated violently for a second, then flopped uselessly.
Squeezing hard and twisting the chain, I watched the warlord’s face begin to go blue, purple. Slowly his right fist opened and he dropped his weapon. The handaxe went clattering down the steps. I relaxed my grip a fraction, sitting upright until I looked down into my enemy’s bulging eyes. Hatred still glared out of them unconcealed.
Releasing my grip a little more, I raised my handaxe almost to arm’s length and said, “Do you admit defeat, Northan?”
For an instant indecision showed in his blood-dark features, then slyness. From his answer it was plain that he did not think I would kill him. “It’s your play, Earthman,” he gasped. “Get it over with!”
Gritting my teeth I lifted my weapon higher yet.
The crowd gasped; Northan fainted: Armandra’s voice screamed in my head: “No!”
I slammed the handaxe down, cutting through the knot of chain above Northan’s head and sending a shower of sparks from the stone steps. Then, as a great sigh went up from the assembly, I lifted him up by his hair and put both feet to his back. Kicking him forward, I sent his unconscious body somersaulting down the steps.
“There,” I told the breathless hall as Northan landed jarringly, face down on the stone floor. “Keep your warlord!”
I got to my feet and stepped up beside Armandra, fording my arms and taking as dramatic a stance as I knew how. “Keep him,” repeated. “Perhaps now, with his strutting stilled, he’ll learn to be as good a citizen as he is a soldier.”
Then, as a delighted uproar burst out all about the hall, I said to Armandra, “And what, princess, if Northan had killed me? It seems to me a shallow sort of affection that risks a life for a barbaric code of existence!”
She leaned on me, her beautiful face pale and drawn as death. “Have I more faith in your friend Whitey than you?” she asked.
“Whitey? You mean you—” I sought Whitey’s face in the crush of people at the foot of the dais. He was grinning cheerfully, heavy eyebrows arched happily. “But why didn’t he—why didn’t you—tell me?”
“We did not want you to relax your vigilance for a moment.”
“Good old Whitey,” I grinned.
“He has earned my eternal respect,” she agreed. “But if you had died, I might well have had him thrown from the roof of
the plateau!”
If I had thought that now the door would be open to Armandra’s chambers, then I had thought wrong. I was her champion, certainly, with the right to attend her at any time during her waking hours and counsel her, and be counseled in return, but as for anything else—forget it. We could not be together; there would not be, could not be, anything other than a sort of courting between us until I had proved myself yet again, in battle against those true enemies of the plateau, the Children of the Wind. And to be absolutely sure that the opportunity would not come for us to be alone together (perhaps she did not trust herself to adhere to the plateau’s ancient rules), Armandra kept either Tracy or Oontawa with her constantly.
Not only was this extremely frustrating for me but it soon began to get on jimmy Franklin’s nerves, too. Because of this, and the fact that by now Tracy was as much taken with Jimmy as he was with her, Armandra allowed the two to be together fairly regularly for short periods, but she never failed to ensure that Oontawa was there to give her moral support in Tracy’s absence.
It wasn’t very long before I became so unhappy with this situation that I would take myself off for long periods to the exercise cave to work off my frustrations in mock but nevertheless furious combat. Indeed, as the weeks stretched out, I began to believe—almost to fear—that all serious battling was over and done with between the People of the Plateau and the wolf-warriors of Ithaqua, that I would never again be given the chance to fight for Armandra’s favors.
Certainly I did not give much thought to the possibility of any real sort of crisis developing within the plateau itself. And yet, looking back on it, I recall that there were warnings enough. Whitey was nervous and jumpy, and kept going on at me to look out for the warlord and his friends.
