Atta (1953) by Francis Rufus Bellamy

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