I did a quick inventory. Red Schaine had taken me captive. She’d said that she had never seen anyone fight like me. The sky-men could have easily slain me once I was unconscious. They had not. Instead, they’d tossed me with the loot. What had the tattler told Esteban Dan to make him so angry? I had a suspicion it had something to do with Schaine. She’d had two laser pistols. Did that indicate she was the leader? She had acted like the leader. Where was she, anyway?
Maybe that didn’t matter. I wasn’t going to get anywhere acting meek amongst these killers. It was time to bluster my way out of this.
I put my hands on my hips, and raised my voice as I said, “Are you going to use twenty men or fifty to try to whip me?”
Esteban Dan stopped. The others behind him stopped as well, although one man didn’t do it quickly enough and jostled him from behind. Esteban roared, spinning around and slapping the offender with the back of his hand. The man went flying, hitting the ground unconscious and unmoving.
The mob of watchers fell silent and moved back several steps as if to make more room for the angry giant.
Esteban pointed a huge index finger at me. I noticed several heavy rings on his fingers. Those must be in lieu of brass knuckles—they would gash my skin if they hit.
“I get it,” I said loudly. “You’re the neutraloid everyone is talking about. What happened to your blue tattoos?”
Shocked silence reigned on the Fighting Hunge Plateau. I could hear a child scream in the distance and the steady chug of the giant steam engine, but that was it.
Esteban’s throat convulsed several times and he blinked as if finding it difficult to swallow something. Then, he began to blush, the blush deepening until it became a purple color. Had he stopped breathing? The black-bearded giant raised his head and troll-like arms, bellowing into the heavens. It was impressive, and it terrified the mob of watchers.
Several people fell back in their haste to get farther from Esteban Dan. Those behind him had a different reaction, looking at each other, grinning hugely. A few laughed, quickly covering their mouths lest Esteban hear them.
The giant lowered his head. I could see the pulse on his engorged neck, a vein there swollen with rage. His eyes blazed hatred, and some of his beard bristled. I heard him grinding his teeth. It was a frightening sound.
With a snarl, he freed the machete at his side.
“No, Esteban,” Schaine said. “No weapons. It must be a true test of warrior prowess.”
I hadn’t seen the crazy redhead until now. She must have been standing with the mob, for she’d shoved her way to the forefront. She’d retied the bindings of her vest, but her breasts strained against the fabric and made an enticing picture. She had changed her leather pants for leather shorts, short shorts, I might add. She had a fantastic ass and astonishingly lovely legs encased in her thigh-high leather boots. Crisscrossing the short shorts were two gun belts. The laser pistols were holstered at her hips.
She was an image of wanton sexuality, with her mane of red hair only adding to the picture.
“Did you—?” Esteban shouted, choking off the rest of his question.
“What if I did?” Schaine shouted at him.
“You’re mine!” Esteban roared.
“You play when I go pirating,” she said. “I don’t complain about that, do I?”
“This is different,” he thundered.
Schaine glanced about, and she seemed angry. “Does anyone on the plateau question my authority, my right to lead the Fighting Hunge? If so, let me hear him or her say it.”
No one spoke, not even the panting Esteban Dan.
“The oracle has laid down the law,” Schaine said. “I am the consulter. As is my right, I appoint the champion. He must be the greatest fighter among us. The champion sleeps in my room, keeping me warm and content. I will allow no lesser mortal to couple with me. He must be the best, the toughest, the most dangerous and manliest warrior standing. Are you that one, Esteban Dan?”
“All know it,” he thundered.
Schaine turned toward me, and I swear she batted her eyelashes. “I used to think that,” she said, “until I saw Jason Bain rove among the Fighting Hunge, killing at will. I have never seen the like, not even from you, Esteban,” she said, turning back to him.
He howled like a madman, shaking his giant fists in the air.
“Do you still want to be my champion?” Schaine cried.
“I am the strongest man alive!” he thundered. “None can best me hand-to-hand.”
“Jason Bain, do you want to be my champion?” Schaine shouted at me.
I wanted to ask what the options were. Could I leave if I declined the offer? I wondered, though, if she would draw a laser pistol and burn me down on the spot if I asked that.
I stared at Esteban Dan, and figured many thought I feared him so much that I couldn’t answer. He might be strong, but he let a wanton guide him with a ring through his balls. She was hot for tough guys. I bet she loved seeing men fight and kill for her. I would guess her psychologically broken. Still, she was the ruling queen and wanted the toughest man at her side.
I had no need for the title of sky-man champion, but I did have a job to do, and right now, that job went through her. The Fighting Hunge seemed like maniacs to me.
“Sure,” I said.
Schaine scowled. “A champion thirsts for the post and hungers to taste the delights of love.”
“There you go,” I said, “painting a picture of true romance. What could be sweeter than that?”
“There is nothing sweeter than my lips,” she shouted.
I pointed at Esteban Dan. “You ready, big guy?”
Red Schaine licked her lips, and I thought to spy calculation in her eyes. Despite that, she balled her hands into fists, turning to Esteban. “Kill him slowly, and I will take you to Nirvana tonight, to heights you have never imagined.”
Esteban spread his arms wide. He had arms like a gorilla. And in a spasm of wild emotion, he tore the leather vest from his torso, revealing slabs of muscle piled upon muscle. Then he began stalking toward me, a brute, a monster of a man bent on murder.
-26-
“Can I use rocks, dirt or other items?” I shouted at Schaine.
“Weakling,” she challenged. “You are about to die. But if you cheat, I will stop the fight, and you will die slowly, howling for mercy.”
“I thought Esteban was going to kill me slowly.”
She glared at me, and the calculation returned to her green eyes. This time, she did not answer. Maybe she realized she wasn’t going to win a verbal confrontation with me.
I had spoken so for a reason. One, I wanted to know the rules. If I could use a rock, I wanted to use one. Two, I wanted to upset Esteban’s equilibrium.
The giant halted, cocking his head at me. I don’t know if it was my questions or my seemingly indifferent manner that did it. I do think some of his initial kill-frenzy left him then.
So, Esteban was twice my weight, a little taller and likely used to these kinds of bouts. And I would think his muscles were primed from constant practice. I was tired, my head still sore from the treacherous clubbing and my body still less than perfectly fit after my healings that used up my inner resources. In my favor were the metabolic changes brought from lying in the Avanti sarcophagus. I was quicker, stronger and harder to kill. Was I tough enough to get the job done? A knife would have greatly aided me, but this was hand-to-hand combat, one of the most grueling things to do in life. Esteban was no cat man, but a killing champion of challengers.
I shook my arms as Esteban neared. I moved my head in a circle, loosening up my neck muscles and making a show, a comedy of it. Then, I began to hop from leg to leg, shaking each one.
Esteban sneered at me and trotted forward.
I continued my one-leg jumps, but motored backward and to the side, keeping out of reach of his long arms.
“Run, weakling,” he said.
I clapped my hands and bobbed my head, doing a li
ttle jig.
The sneer left his face. Maybe he understood I was mocking him. With a roar, he charged, his head lowered and his arms outstretched.
That might have been it for me, but my enemy’s apparent slowing took place again. I’m guessing the sarcophagus had done something so that in these moments, my metabolic rate speeded up drastically. Time slowed down, perhaps due to a new drug my body produced.
I had time to think and judge the moment just right. I ducked under the slowly sweeping arms, kicked out a foot and let his left shin strike mine.
Excruciating pain flared there, as there was nothing slow about the strike. I began to bellow at the hurt, but managed to grunt instead and force myself to keep from hopping on one leg, clutching my hurting shin. I finally turned, seeing him airborne from my trip.
This would be the perfect moment to dash forward and kick him twenty times in the head, killing him, as he lay prone. My shin hurt too badly for that. So I stood watching.
As I did, the process or drug departed as quickly as it had appeared. He moved normally again, plowing against the rock chin-first.
An audible gasp rose from the crowd.
Esteban pushed up, shaking his head. He felt his chin under his mass of beard, and his fingers came away bloody. With a grunt, he looked back at me.
I waved to him, smiling, doing my best to hide the pain of my throbbing shin.
He stood up, and he stared. He did not bellow. He did not roar insults. He studied me, perhaps realizing that I was something different, something he hadn’t faced before.
Esteban had just become more dangerous. I also respected him for his change in thinking. He was a mountain of a warrior, and he might have been making a show before. That would make him a tremendous actor, and that would mean he was a thinker.
I had not expected that from him.
Humph. I’d let looks deceive me, or had I? He’d acted like a brute, charging like a rhino. That had probably been good enough for most of his fights. Just how many times had the crowd watched Esteban kill a challenger for Schaine’s love? Maybe it wasn’t love, but the right to lay with a wildcat in bed. In any case, Esteban was more than just a bellowing berserker. He proved it by his next attack.
He walked toward me in a deliberate manner as if he was coming over for supper.
“I’m going to crush you, little man,” he said in a low voice. “I’m going to twist you into positions you didn’t know were possible.”
“No hard feelings, Esteban. It’s just part of the job.”
He cocked his head.
I broke into a sprint, charging him.
A tiny smile twitched across his lips.
I gained speed and leapt, using both feet to hit him with a flying mule kick in the chest. To my horror, he only staggered back a little, while I shot away and hit the rocky ground with my shoulders.
I didn’t know which was worse, his low chuckle or the ripple of laughter from the watching sky-men.
“That the best you can do?” he asked.
I climbed to my feet, thinking that might be the case. Esteban was quite a different problem than the cat man I’d faced back at the Allan Corporation. There, I’d used a forbidden knife against a much faster opponent armed with teeth and claws. I was far faster than Esteban, but he was like an impenetrable wall.
“Thought so,” he said, advancing toward me.
I raised my fists in a classic boxer’s stance, backpedalling, keeping out of range of his hands. If he ever got hold of me, I was likely dead.
“What did you say about him, Schaine?” he asked in a mocking tone. “He was a killer? Isn’t that what you said?”
Esteban’s hands—his fingers, I realized. Those were his sole weak points. But if he caught me while I tried this—
While his head was half-cocked over his left shoulder as he talked to Schaine, I lunged. Someone in the crowd shouted a warning, the bastard. Esteban turned and tried to grab me.
Fortunately, he slowed down just then, as the new gland in me must have given me a speed shot. I’d have to figure out what exactly activated the process.
I dodged his pathetically slow grab, gripped the middle finger of his right hand and wrenched hard as I twisted, breaking the finger. Then, I released it and moved out of range.
Pain creased his heavy features, and he shook his right hand. Then he looked at the hand—I attacked again, and this time I grabbed the little finger of his left hand, breaking it.
As I moved away, I felt a decided lurch inside my body. I went “oof” as something kicked me out of slow time or fast time, depending how you looked at it. Sweat pooled on my face, and I instinctively knew that I would not enter that state again during the fight. I breathed harder and felt horribly exhausted.
A glimmering of the process struck me. Maybe I compressed my energy, my muscular contractions into one spurt, moving faster but burning up many times more calories or strength doing it. That put a decided limit on the process.
Could I use it knowingly instead of instinctively? Maybe in time, I suppose. First, I would have to survive this fight.
Esteban glared at me as he held his hands before him. He had two broken fingers, one on each hand.
“That won’t help you,” he growled.
“Won’t hurt me, either,” I said, putting some joviality into my voice.
There was hesitation in his eyes, and inspiration struck me. I sprinted at him the same way as before. Likely, Esteban and the crowd expected the same maneuver as before. I was counting on that. I made to leap for a flying mule kick against his chest.
Esteban set himself, putting one foot behind him to brace himself.
I leapt, but not at his chest. I leapt low this time, using both feet to strike his slightly outthrust right knee. Something cracked, something snapped, and Esteban howled as he toppled. He hit the ground and clutched his right knee, his torn and broken knee.
Was that dirty fighting? You could call it that, but in a fight to the death, I believed there were no dirty ploys, just winning and losing. But did this have to be a fight to the death? Maybe I could change that.
Panting, standing near him, I said loudly, “Had enough, Esteban?”
He glared at me through the pain and slowly shook his head.
I wasn’t going to ask again. Instead, I circled him. He lay on his side, swiveling around on the ground to face me. My boot heels were the hardest substance I had to hit him. If I used my fists, I’d likely break my own bones, striking him over and over again.
The next part of the fight was ugly as I stomped at areas of opportunity. He was still too strong, still too powerful for me to risk letting him get hold of me. Instead, I destroyed his other knee, his left wrist, an ankle—it was grim work as I’d said. Maybe I was hoping someone would stop it for me. Maybe only Red Schaine could.
I glanced at her once. Her eyes shined weirdly as she licked her lips like a vampire queen ready to feast. Schaine was no ordinary woman. Clearly, Esteban had been her lover. Now, though, she got off on watching me stomp the shit out of him.
I wanted to ask if that was enough, but I knew it wouldn’t be. Esteban was tough. He never asked for mercy. He never whimpered. I was beginning to feel soiled doing this—so I took a risk.
I kicked him hard in the windpipe. He grabbed my foot, and I think despite his broken fingers and wrist, he would have twisted it off my leg, but I wrenched hard before he could get to work, and besides, he was gurgling, finding it hard to breathe. I feinted at his belly. He tried to block, and I kicked him in the throat again.
The hand-to-hand battle ended gruesomely as huge Esteban Dan writhed on the ground, trying to pry my arm from around his badly kicked and bruised throat.
“Sorry,” I whispered in his ear. “But the mob wants blood.”
Had Esteban whispered that into the ears of men he’d slain over the months or years that he’d stayed champion of the camp? I don’t know. I’m not trying to justify my actions. I killed the giant, but I gained no joy
or satisfaction from it.
Instead, as I stood, listening to the mob bay for me, cheering my victory, I wanted to be anywhere but here.
Red Schaine strutted near, spitting on Esteban’s corpse. Then she held out her right hand to me. “Come, champion. Now, you’ll receive your victory prize.”
She was a viper full of venom, and I could well imagine my corpse lying there someday as she spat on it, but I took her hand anyway, and the mob roared with exultation.
Then, Schaine and I headed for a stone hut.
-27-
It turned out the plateau was a special encampment of the Fighting Hunge, as compared to the other Hunge who lived a miserable existence in various parts of the Kurgech Mountain Range. Those Hunge mined for flint, coal and metallic ores. According to what I heard, they were not deep mines with thick beams shoring them up, but holes in the side of certain hills or cliffs. Wind Runners traded with those Hunge, usually driving hard bargains.
The Fighting Hunge, according to Schaine, had risen into existence after the first starmenter accidentally landed in the Kurgech Mountains. The off-world pirates had come in a stricken spaceship, needing repairs and pulsating rocks for their engine room. The starmenters had used special equipment in their spaceship to find the pulsating rocks on the planet and had used captured Hunge to dig for them.
One of those Hunge had been named Theo Ran, and he’d paid attention to everything. After the ship left, Theo continued mining the pulsating rocks. The technical term for them was Zhorium-X10, and they indeed pulsated in their natural state. Theo had also used an ancient communication device to attempt to speak with other passing starmenters. Finally, Theo Ran’s diligence paid off, and another starmenter ship landed. The pirates had attempted theft, but Theo had learned his lesson from the first ship, moving his people and cargo to deep mountain hideouts undetectable from space. Apparently, the starmenters decided on dickering rather than fighting. That had been the real beginning of the Fighting Hunge, gaining machine guns and the first sky-shark for the Zhorium-X10.
“The oracle did the rest,” Schaine said later in the afternoon.
The Imprisoned Earth Page 11
