The Chieftain

by John Norman

  The peasant spun about, and the large, soft man, he who had first led such into the arena, who had been approaching him surreptitiously from the rear, lowered his barang and fled back.

  A cry from the stands alerted the peasant to the entry of two hunters into the arena. They were dressed in the spotted pelts of the hanis leopard, indigenous to the savannahs of Lysis, sixth world of the massive star, Safa Major, or Greater Safa. Each carried a net in the left hand, a spear in the right. In their belts were the bleeding, weakening darts, like tiny, finned javelins. They spread out, one to each side of the peasant. They shook the nets, they cried out at him. Did they think he was a vi-cat, to be so distracted? He was a man, not some confused beast. He turned suddenly and charged the man to his right. One blow of the barang snapped his spear, the second took his arm off at the shoulder; the peasant spun about to cut the flung net in twain. With his left hand he caught the thrust spear and jerked the hunter toward him, he too tardy to release the weapon, onto the point of the barang . Behind him the other hunter, thrusting his shoulder into the sand, to stanch the blood, was screaming. He withdrew the barang from the body of the hunter who had been to his left. The man was still alive. The peasant then threw the severed cape of his own net over him, and, reaching through the toils of the net, withdrew five of the tiny javelinlike darts from his belt. He saw the tips were coated, as he had supposed. He then, one after the other, thrust them into his body. He then went to stand by the carcass of the vi-cat. He looked up to the stands. But there was silence only for a moment, and then it was broken by a blast of trumpets, and from the gate of fighters strode forth two gladiators, those who would have been matched against one another later in the afternoon. These men were matched, trained fighters. It was not likely that one would die, for it was a small town, and an unimportant arena. It is expensive to train and maintain a gladiator. Most matches would not be to the death. The crowd, on the whole, wanted only a good fight. A defeated gladiator, lifting his hand for mercy to the crowd, was commonly spared. The crowd would have its favorites. Some gladiators were famed on a dozen worlds. Some matches, extensively advertised, lavishly promoted, were anticipated for months. Some gladiators were rich men, with villas on various worlds. It was rumored there were tricks, too, the pellet which, bitten, could leak a scarlet fluid from the mouth, the animal bladder filled with pig blood, concealed under the tunic, such things. The discovery of such scandals commonly provoked exclamations of moral outrage among the aficionados of the sport. There had been changes in the rules on various worlds. On many worlds it was now required by law to drag dead bodies, and supposedly dead bodies, from the arena with hooks, such as were carried by the dwarfs. Such regulations, and their enforcements by dedicated officialdoms, had tended to restore integrity to the sport. But, all things considered, the sport was undeniably a terrible and dangerous one, in which many men died. One did not rise to the top by victories without kills. Most gladiators were associated with various schools, in which they were trained, and which, in effect, they usually represented. Gladiators were commonly condemned criminals or slaves, seizing on the opportunity to fight for freedom and wealth, but it was not at all unknown for free men, particularly of the humiliori , to enter the profession, which constituted one of the few opportunities for fame and affluence open to them. In later times many soil workers would see in the arena a way to escape the bindings. Others, perhaps for similar reasons, would enter the clergy, it offering freedom from the bindings and a possible route, if one were sufficiently ambitious and clever, to a wealth and prestige, a power, that might rival that of princes. Too, of course, there were occasional scions of the honestori themselves, jaded youth, destitute prodigals, and such, who would see in the arena an opportunity for thrills and fame, and even recouped fortunes. There are many forms of arena fighters, or gladiators, with different varieties of weapons, and different techniques, but such matters are not now germane to our account. The two who had just entered the arena were not of the superbii , the gladiatorial elite, nor were they exotics. They were, on the other hand, efficient, trained men, quite competent in their craft. Each had had more than a dozen kills. Interestingly, too, and I mention it because it is relevant to our account, they were both of the same school. This was unusual, for usually individuals, and teams, from different schools were matched against one another. Rivalries existed, of course, among the various schools, and some rivalries were famous ones. These two gladiators, from the same school, or house, in such an arena, at such a time, were expected to deliver little more than an exhibition of arms.

  Music began to play.

  The two gladiators, entered now into the arena, as had been the vi-cat, and the hunters, marched slowly about the small circuit of the arena. They were brawny men, in bootlike sandals. They wore helmets. They paused now and then, to lift their arms to the crowd, the sheathed left arm with its buckler, the right with the small, wicked blade. Some of the dwarfs, still in the arena, leaped up and down, cheering, as they passed.

  Applause came from the stands.

  “Kill him, kill him!” screamed the crowd.

  One of the gladiators turned to look at him, the one to his right, along the circuit of the wall.

  “Kill him,” chanted the crowd.

  But there was no immediate concern about such matters on the part of the gladiators.

  They made the circuit, they kept the formalities, the tradition.

  The large, soft men had been despicable, better for little more than putting terrorized, sheeplike criminals, such as the adherents of Floon, to the sword. The vi-cat had not been a prime specimen. It may have been diseased. The hunters were poor stuff, and better for little more than torturing and murdering a confused animal.

  They, on the other hand, were of a different breed altogether. They were men of the sword, trained arena fighters, gladiators, in their way, steady, practical, experienced, competent professional killers.

  No longer need the crude, dangerous peasant be feared.

  The situation was now in hand.

  The two gladiators, we may suppose, were inordinately pleased at being relieved of the obligation to confront one another, even in what would presumably be little more than an exhibition. The crowd, even a provincial one, expects a show. And it is hard to control the blade, given the smoothness of the metal, the speed of the exchanges, the deflections of the parrying.

  The killing of a young, untrained peasant, a stranger, one raised in some primitive village, one from some half-barbarous world somewhere, would be no more than a moment’s recreation for them, unless they chose to draw out the matter, lest the crowd be displeased, the sport too soon concluded. We may suppose that both had resolved to give the death stroke cleanly, however, as one might in butchering an animal, not torturing some hated foe, at whose hands one might have received an insult.

  They did not bear him ill will, no more than the butcher bears the pig or calf ill will.

  The two gladiators now made their way, one from each side, along the circuit of the wall, toward the privileged seats, within which was the throne box.

  The match, if there were to have been one, would commonly follow the salute.

  But there was to be no match, unless one might speak so of what was projected, a judicial butchery.

  “Wait!” called the peasant.

  The gladiators, before the throne box, turned to face him. It was hard to see their faces, because of the helmets.

  “Look!” cried a woman in the stands.

  Then there was applause.

  “He has come to join in the salute!” called another woman.

  The peasant solemnly made his way forward.

  “He wishes to show his respect to the empire, before he dies,” called another woman from the stands.

  There was applause.

  Such a gesture, its nobleness, its magnanimity, in one who might expect in a moment to die, had not been expected by the crowd, not in such a rude youth.

  There was more a
pplause.

  Tears were in the eyes of more than one woman in the stands.

  As he came forward, barang in hand, he noted the throne box, and, within it, the mayor, the judge, and the officer of the court, the daughter of the judge. All were on their feet.

  “Do not salute the empire!” cried one of the kneeling adherents of Floon.

  “Repudiate the empire!” called another.

  “The empire is evil!” cried another.

  “Down with the empire!” called another.

  “Be silent!” cried men and women in the crowd.

  “It is only the koos which is important, and Floon!” cried another.

  “Repent!” cried another.

  “Declare for Floon!” begged another. “The forgiveness of Floon is available to all who request it.”

  “Be good!” called another. “Kneel to die. Floon will protect you!”

  “Kneel, and commend your koos to the keeping of Floon!” wept another.

  “Silence, silence!” chided the crowd.

  But then the peasant had strode through the kneeling adherents of Floon, of which there were some fifteen to twenty left, not seeming to hear them.

  “Hail!” called the two gladiators, facing the throne box, their swords lifted, “hail to the emperor, to the empire, to all governors and prefects, to all who serve her!”

  The mayor, in her civic capacity, on behalf of the power of galaxies, lifted her small gloved hand, acknowledging the salute.

  The second portion of the salute was an ancient one, one which dated back to the early days of the empire, indeed, shortly after the dissolution of the republic, a consequence of the third civil war, and its replacement with the imperial dignity, and the efficiency of the imperial administration. I shall use a familiar salute, in order to achieve familiarity, for which I have striven in many cases in this narrative, but it is one which will convey, in my view quite adequately, the drift of the salute actually given in that small arena on Terennia, which was, indeed, the same salute which would have been given on a Telnarian world itself.

  “We who are about to die salute you.”

  Such sentiments, you see, in such circumstances, tend to appear.

  A cry of horror rose from the crowd for the peasant, instead of joining in this salute, had smote away the head, and part of the upper body, of the gladiator to his left, these things tumbling, the head in the helmet, to the wall. There had been two reasons for selecting the gladiator on the left for the stroke. First, the peasant was right-handed and thus could bring his blade into play most quickly from that position, and, secondly, and doubtless more important, the gladiator to his right was right-handed, which meant that his sword hand was on the side away from the peasant. By the time the gladiator on his right had turned about, then, the peasant had returned to what, within his limitations, might be characterized as a defensive position. At this point the peasant began to back toward the center of the arena.

  He had few doubts about the likely talents of a professional arena fighter, and did not care to meet him there, blade to blade, before the privileged seats.

  The gladiator who had been to the peasant’s right had spun about instantly, his buckler forward, his blade back. This was a matter of honed reflexes. He had reacted before he understood what had happened. It was almost like the movement away from a suddenly appearing snake, the sudden drawing of the hand away from fire, reacting, not thinking, only thinking later.