by Atta (pdf)
drinking, prefers to fight like the tiger, with all feet on
the ground. Moreover, although he will rise on his hind
legs to throw an enemy to the ground, he knows only the
tactics of attack and will follow them in all circumstances.
This slavish adherence to form I had observed a score
126
A T T A
of times, and I was certain that this particular Forzan
would follow it.
He did. He was already pursuing me with terrifying
swiftness, and I had barely time to climb up on my four-
foot vantage point before he was on me. He thought that
he had me cornered, too. I am certain of it. For he
rushed at my post like a veritable tiger, and then, like
every Formican, he raised himself and extended his
brawny arms to crush me, enfold me, and bite me to
death.
It was instinctive with him, I can only suppose. But it
was also fatal. For he presented a perfect target to an
axman when he raised his sawlike head. Standing on my
post I whirled my ax like any woodsman and brought it
down with a crash on the top of his skull. The next thing
I knew the very air shivered with crashing applause. I had
just enough strength left to jump down from my post
and acknowledge it. But I was so badly dazed that for
several minutes I did not comprehend that Challenge
three was actually over and done with. I staggered about
picking up my lance, calling Trotta, and restoring my
lost hatchet to its holster. Then, ax in hand, I stood
watching the attendants carry off the corpses of my late
opponents.
In some dim way I must have been imagining that
surely no further proof of a man’s ability to serve Fusa
could be needed. If there were to be a Challenge Four,
it ought to be in the form of a ribbon for distinguished
service. No hint of the future presented itself to my mind;
none could have in the few brief moments that elapsed
between the end of Challenge Three and the onset of
Challenge Four. All I knew was that a hush fell on the
assemblage as an attendant crossed the arena toward
me, bearing a green garland shaped somewhat like a
Hawaiian lei. This hung around my neck after some
deliberation, and then wild applause swept the stands
once more as he and all the attendants fled for the stands,
leaving me alone in the arena.
A T T A
127
An instant later the bass viol trumpet sounded again
with a sigh like that of a thousand waves falling on seashore sands, and I knew that a last and terrible test of some kind was upon me.
This time Oban made no announcement. On the far
side of the arena a number of Fusans leaned over the
wall and pulled up another wooden barrier that I had
not noticed before. From the dark entrance thus disclosed darted forth a huge hairy monster as big as a two-ton truck, with high jointed legs and shaggy head shaped
like a gorilla’s. He looked like a monstrous, colossal Wolf
Spider, and I suppose he was. For he ran along the base
of the wall at first—I should say he stole along the wall,
there was such an indescribable air of obscene stealth
about his movements—and then, turning, he saw me and
began to run toward me in a series of zigzag rushes that
were swift and confusing in the extreme. That is to $ay,
he ran toward me but not at me, as if he expected to
dazzle me with the unexpectedness of his oblique movements.
At the same time he never took his two deepset beady
eyes from mine, and they seemed to grow ever larger in
their black caverns as he stared evilly at me and alternately ran and stood suddenly still. It was soul-chilling in the extreme. For his high-jointed knees were as high
as my face, and his shaggy body was slung between
them as if on bent buggy springs, and the whole monstrous mass of him was a good twelve feet across. His open jaws alone were a foot wide, showing wicked teeth
below what appeared to be a grotesque gray mustache
with four shiny portholes above it. Even his two arms
and six legs—three on a side—were covered with thick,
spiky, shaggy hair.
Almost on the instant Trotta began to tremble violently. And a faint fetid smell assailed my nostrils. It was the unmistakable smell of decayed meat—the stifling foul
breath that many a hunter has endured from a wild bear.
My opponent was a meat-eater; the kind of spider that,
128
A T T A
disdaining web or poison, stalks and kills his prey on the
run. In my boyhood I had seen this despicable creature
often under the microscope, and the only difference here
was that he was of nightmare size and seemed to be fascinated by the green garland that I wore.
Was it possible that this was the method the Fusans
used to single out the beast’s victim for him, and that
not until he was sated by sucking the entrails of his kill
could he be coerced back into his cell?
The possibility sent shudders to my very vitals. For it
was obvious that my offensive weapons—my hatchet, ax,
and lance—were almost useless against this kind of antagonist. It was impossible to reach his huge, sulkylike body without risking entanglement in his sharp claws and long, jointed legs. Moreover he moved with
such unexpected jerkiness that he could not be approached with safety or certainty from any angle.
Meanwhile he was actually approaching me ever closer
with his unpredictable oblique maneuvers. In a matter
of seconds, it was clear, he would be upon me, seizing
me in his claws, entangling me in his jointed legs, and
sinking his jaws in my body.
Could I by any chance lasso him? Was there the faintest chance that a loop could ever tighten over one of his projecting knees without slipping off?
All this raced through my mind while I sat on Trotta.
And then I dug my heels into her faithful ribs and galloped straight out into the arena in the rear of the now menacing beast. My only chance, I had decided, lay in
swift movement—movement that would make any contest
between us like a kind of insane, unremitting battle between two Queens on a chess board. For it had jumped into my brain that my antagonist might not only be relying on the definite hypnotism of his glowing, evil eyes, but also might be unable to run in any other way than
the grotesque series of oblique rushes he had so far displayed.
This was wholly conjecture, of course, but I had inad
A T T A
129
vertently hit upon something, I realized as I reined up
in a cloud of dust and turned Trotta abruptly about.
For it had taken me some twenty seconds to reach the
spot I had selected, and in that time my monster had
only succeeded in wheeling himself about in a series of
jerks. Did he have any other blind spots, I wondered?
He was now all set to rush me again, and even as the
question entered my mind he started, this time in a
direct line.
“Steady, Trotta,” I admonished my faithful mount. And
despite her nervousness and trembling I held her still
long enough to try another maneuver: that of stepping
aside at t
he critical moment as the matador does in the
bullring. It took steady nerves, if I do say it so myself, for
already my antagonist was bearing down on me like some
voracious prehistoric beast, and I had no idea what he
would do. Nevertheless I waited until he was almost upon me, and then I dug my heels into Trotta’s body and reined her sharply aside. She fairly jumped away just
as the monster shot by, not three feet behind us. He
must have been going twenty miles an hour, I judged,
and not for many yards was he able to stop—a fact that
entered my pounding brain like a flash of lightning.
It took him less time to turn about than before, however, and I did not wait for him to complete the movement. I galloped off at right angles to the stone posts and again awaited his rush at a distance, I should say,
of about a hundred and fifty yards. For a definite plan
had entered my mind, but I did not dare put it into
action without further trial.
My enemy seemed to have perfect confidence that I
could not escape him eventually at all, for he made no
attempt to change his tactics, and I had no opportunity
for further thought before he was racing down on me
again with that ungainly yet machinelike precision, terrifying in the extreme. Trotta almost whimpered at the sight, it was so blood-curdling; and I myself, I must confess, had hard work convincing my jumping nerves that
130
A T T A
mere craft and brain could ever prevail against such an
antagonist. It was a kind of inherited fear, I suppose,
bom of long-forgotten conflicts with such monsters by
generations of men dead for ages. It nearly paralyzed
me.
As a matter of fact I scarcely knew where I was, and
the thousands of spectators had ceased to exist for me. I
saw only the approaching destroyer, and I wondered if I
could dodge him again and count upon doing it still once
more. For in that lay my only salvation.
None of this suspense affected my antagonist in the
least, of course. He bore down on me with incredible
malignancy, his evil black eyes glowing with hatred or
appetite, his impenetrable body slung behind his high-
jointed legs, which moved like a machine. He seemed to
have no idea that I might again jump aside; at least he
gave no sign of considering anything but his headlong
forward rush.
I took no avoidable chance, however. Waiting until
the very last incredible second, this time I swerved Trotta
right instead of left when the final moment to dodge
came. And for the second time I evaded destruction,
though by a margin that left me almost breathless. So
close was the beast that his rush left in my nostrils once
more that horrible fetid smell, sickening me to nausea.
He kept sliding on for many feet, and for the second
time hope rose in my heart. It was now or never, I decided tremblingly. Tactics of evasion could never win such a contest and would soon wear thin. My only
chance was to use them while they were still effective,
and in a manner that would allow me to take the offensive.
Already I was the proper distance from the stone posts,
thanks to my previous choice of position, and now I unslung my lance and headed Trotta for them, not at a gallop but at a slow trot.
It was a hair-raising gamble, of course, for I could almost feel my enemy turning around even as I started,
A T T A
131
and before I had covered half the distance to the posts I
could hear the rush of his feet as he began his new pursuit. But it was vital that he have no opportunity to look over the ground before he started and no idea that anything solid stood behind Trotta when I reined her up to await his onslaught. The stone post was my aee in
the hole, and I meant to play it. I meant to reach it only
a few seconds before my antagonist was upon me.
I held to my plan despite an almost irresistible impulse to let Trotta bolt for safety. I did not turn her to await my enemy until I was within ten feet of the post,
and by that time the monster himself was not over fifty
feet away. It was a split-second gamble if I ever saw
one. I could see the rough stone in the post, and I could
almost feel the fetid breath of my pursuer before I turned
around, waited an incalculably brief moment to make
sure he could not stop, and then dug my heels sharply
into Trotta’s body to dodge him once more.
He went by so close that one of his legs struck Trotta’s
hind leg as I whirled her forelegs out of his way and
brought her up all standing. But he missed her, and that
was all I wanted. For the stone post stood not ten feet
behind her, and he could not miss that. He hit if with a
dull thud that even I heard and that must momentarily
have stunned him. He did not move for a second or two,
and in that second I was on him, standing up straight in
my stirrups, holding my lance above my head, gripped
firmly in both hands. His back it was that stood exposed,
and in four seconds I had plunged the huge sharp-
pointed needle into him until two feet of it had disappeared. Then Trotta reared away from him; I let go the lance even as a high sudden shriek came from him;
and the combat was on.
For I was under no illusion that one lance jab would
put this antagonist out of the running. All I counted on
was the terrible pain of the wound to confuse him and
lead him to try to extract the venomous pole so unceremoniously stuck into his vitals. And to my profound
132
A T T A
gratitude this was exactly what he first did. Even as I
wheeled away from him he was backing away from the
stone post and with shrieks of pain trying to pull out the
lance with his cupped clawlike feet. “Praise the Lord
God!” I exclaimed, an excitement flooded me like a
cloudburst as I grasped my nearest lasso and began
whirling its coils.
In less time than these words take to write I had
whirled my rope and sent its snakelike coil hurtling over
the lance and his struggling claws. Even as it fell I
snubbed it on my pommel and backed Trotta swiftly until the noose closed with irrevocable tightness. Then I leaped from the saddle, looped my end tightly around
a second stone post, leaped back into the saddle, and was
off again. For my monster was now thrashing like a shark
that a harpoon has pierced—thrashing the lance about and
lifting his front claws frenziedly to the aid of his two
tightly roped rear ones.
“I’ve got you now, my friend!” I exclaimed. And I
threw my second lasso from a distance of less than thirty
feet. I could not afford to miss those raised front claws.
I realized. Nor did I. In five seconds I had a rope around
his front claws, pulling them together; and soon I was
backing Trotta in a new direction, stretching out my victim like a blanket, backing Trotta foot by foot with my arms almost tom from my shoulders.
But I did not stop until I had backed her clear around
another stone post and got a purchase on that. And even
then I twisted my rope many times around the post until
it was tight and immovable
, before I took time to go
back and look at my antagonist.
Like a monstrous nightmare beast he lay, his hairy
face on the ground, two of his legs and the lance pulled
tight to the right, two more to the left, and his other
two still scrabbling ineffectually beneath him. But I still
feared him. With an air of casual bravado I dismounted,
drew my hatchet from my belt, and threw it unerringly
straight into the back of his brain. Then I unslung my
A T T A
133
ax, walked slowly toward him, and cut off the claws from
his two free legs, piece by piece.
These I held up to the view of the cheering thousands
in the stands, threw them from me, and leaned on my ax.
“Merry Christmas, Draca,” I said under my breath.
“What next?”
Chapter 10
The main outline of what followed is a little dim to
me. I remember the shouting thousands, the sound once
more of the great bass viol, the admiring faces of the
crowd, the distant announcement from the dais, and the
attendants who accompanied me back to it.
I was apparently a hero. Hundreds of Fusans swarmed
on to the field and examined my lance, my lassos, my
hatchet, my ax, and at me they looked with awe, Even
Trotta shared in my glory.
At the dais Oban nodded to me with as close an approach to approval as his expressionless countenance could manage, and Draca’s saturnine face was a study in
cold frustration. Nevertheless both of them approached
me at last as I stood talking with Nuru and offered me
their compliments. I accepted them as I did the words
of praise Halket uttered in the name of Fusa’s soldiers.
But the truth was that the abrupt transition from facing
death alone to being thus publicly acclaimed by thousands was too much for my nerves to assimilate, and to this day I scarcely know what I did or said.
All I was actually conscious of was that Atta was nowhere in sight and that I had won my desperate and in
134
A T T A
credible victory only to be deprived of my last link with
