by Paul Kenyon
She spat in his face. Too late, she realized she'd given Sully the kind of action he could use.
The officer's face contorted with rage. He ripped the transparent gown off her body and flung it to the sand. She was going to face the Hon weaponless and stark naked.
The officer stepped aside to give the cameras a long look at her bare body. She strained against the chains, the corded muscles of her arms and legs standing out against the smooth creamy skin, her magnificent breasts quivering.
A trumpet fanfare sounded. The crowd went wild. She lurched suddenly forward as the shackles were unlocked. The lion's gate went up and the centurions scrambled for safety.
The lion bounded out like an overgrown kitten and paused, blinking in the bright sunlight. The great head lifted, fixing on his prey.
The Baroness caught her balance, her mind working at high speed. It would take a high-powered rifle to stop the beast, and she didn't have one. She didn't even have anything to throw at him.
Except some meat.
She whirled and ran. The crowd roared. This was what Sully had been hoping for. The movement stimulated the Hon to action, like a cat going after a mouse. He gave an earsplitting roar and bounded across the sand.
The Baroness caught up with one of the fleeing centurions just before he reached the safety gate. He'd been the slowest of the lot. She dived and caught him by both ankles. He pitched forward into the sand, mewling with terror.
She pulled him toward her by the ankles. She could see the horror-stricken faces of his buddies. They didn't dare come out to get him. The safety gate banged shut.
She rolled over and over in the sand with the centurion, the leather and steel of his costume hard against her bare flesh. He was trying to get his fingers into her throat, all the while looking over her shoulder with terrified eyes at the bounding approach of death.
The Baroness' hand lifted, the fingers held rigid in the karate knife-hand position. The striking area, between wrist and little finger, was as hard as an axe head. She smashed it down across his larynx. His throat crushed like boxwood.
Without wasted motion, she snatched his short sword out of its scabbard and left it in the sand next to her foot. She hooked her strong fingers into his leather cuirass and surged to her feet, lifting the body with her.
The lion was only yards away. She could see the stiff whiskers, the tangled mane, the moist red triangle of the nose and the mouth gaping open to show the curving yellowed fangs.
She swung the centurion's limp body in a low arc, heaving with all her might. The body sailed through the air and skidded to a stop at the lion's feet.
The lion stopped.
It sniffed cautiously at the body. It made a peculiar whining sound, like a run-down starter. The tail, with the tuft of dark fur at the end of it, twitched.
Penelope held her breath.
The lion put out one massive paw, stretching it so that the claws came out. They were wicked-looking talons, like the hooks of a grapnel. The paw prodded the body. When the lion had satisfied itself that there was no movement, it hooked the claws into the centurion's flesh and pulled the body toward it.
Penelope moved her hand slowly toward the sword in the sand, not taking her eyes off the lion. Her hand found the hilt and closed around it. She moved back carefully, putting more yards between herself and the lion.
The lion was preoccupied with the body now. It tossed the limp form up in the air like a stuffed toy. The terrible claws were ripping long strips of bloody flesh off the body. The blood seemed to excite the lion. It growled and sank its teeth into the centurion's muscular thigh.
The sword had a peculiar heft. Penelope looked at it more closely. The blade was drooping.
The damned thing was made of rubber.
The lion was getting tired of its plaything. It had the body by the neck, dragging it around the arena. It shook the floppy form playfully, but the lack of movement bored the great cat.
Penelope stood motionless, legs apart, the rubber sword in her hand.
The lion gave a cry of rage and took a mouthful of meat out of the centurion's buttock. Penelope waited to see if the creature would settle down and feed.
It didn't. It took a casual swipe at the body with an open paw. The claws ripped through stiff leather and flesh. The centurion's guts spilled out on the sand.
Penelope shivered. She looked at the muscles rippling under the tawny fur. One of those paws, even closed, would knock her sprawling. And they wouldn't be closed.
The lion looked up at Penelope. It sniffed the air. Its tail twitched.
One of the Panavision cameras floated down twenty feet for a close-up.
Penelope could see the beast's sinuous body gather itself for a leap. The lion crouched back on its hind legs, the thick muscles crawling under the fur. This close, she could see the old scars, the wet mangy patches in the animal's coat. She braced herself, her one hundred and twenty pounds against the lion's four hundred and fifty. She threw her head back, tossing the hair out of her eyes. She looked like the nude statue of an Amazon.
And then the Hon leaped.
She wasn't there when it landed. She was six feet to one side, twisting even as the immense mailed head turned toward her. Her arm moved in a blur, slapping the rubber blade across its eyes.
The lion howled in rage and flung a paw up in front of its face. The jaws snapped.
But the Baroness had jumped on the lion's back. The lion reared up like a bucking horse. She gripped the muscular body with her knees, her hand clutching the thick mane for dear life. She could hang on for about three seconds, she guessed.
Her free hand flashed to the bottom of her bare foot. She pinched the sole between thumb and forefinger and peeled it away. The lion tried to reach her, its teeth snapping inches from her flesh. Where was the skewer? Her frantically groping fingers found the blunt end and she drew the flat, flexible spit out of its plastic scabbard.
The lion began to roll over, spitting its fury. What was a lion's anatomy? What if she hit a bone? Where were the major nerve ganglia, the vessels that carried blood toward the brain, not away from it? The poison was intended for a human being; would it be powerful enough for a creature weighing three times as much?
With a silent prayer, she plunged the skewer into the lion's shoulder. The huge animal stiffened instantly and gave a maddened roar. The poison was a synthetic black widow spider venom, an incredibly powerful neurotoxin that instantly dissolved nerve endings and flashed like lightning toward the spinal cord and brain. It must have seemed to the lion as if it had been stung by a thousand bees.
She hung on with insane strength as the lion rolled over, thrashing and spitting. If the claws or teeth reached her, it was all over. The quarter-ton of cat crushed her, driving the breath out of her. It was like having three men on top of you. She kept her grip, her face buried in the musty fur.
The lion took at least ten seconds to die. A man would have died in less than a second.
Dazed, the Baroness crawled out from underneath the huge carcass. She was bruised but, incredibly, there wasn't a scratch on her. She stayed on her hands and knees, her head swimming. There was an expanse of thousands of faces in front of her blurred vision, and the roar of the voices was like the sound of the ocean.
There were rough hands grabbing at her. By the time her vision cleared, there were five men in Roman soldiers' costumes holding onto her, looking scared. She didn't blame them. In the last few minutes, they'd seen her kill one of the centurions who'd thrown her to the lions, then — somehow — kill the lion.
Sully came trotting over, mopping his face with a big silk handkerchief.
"That was socko," he said admiringly. "It wasn't what I had in mind, but it was the most fantastic thing I've ever gotten on film. I don't know how you did it, Baroness, but I'm gonna change the screenplay to work it in."
"What are you going to do, Sully?" she said. "Throw the lions to the Christians?"
He laughed. "I'm glad to se
e you have a sense of humor, Baroness. You're gonna need it." He took off his beret and scratched his head. "I gotta talk it over with my writer and figure out the details. But in the next scene, you die."
"You have another lion handy, do you?"
He gave her an evil grin. "No, this scene you play with Joe Skytop."
Chapter 15
The Baroness lay staked out in starfish position, arms outstretched and legs spread apart. She was still naked. After they'd tied her down, they'd done a fresh makeup job on her face and put her hair up again. She could taste blood in her mouth; she'd almost bitten off the hairdresser's thumb.
The sand was hot and gritty on her bare skin. The desert sun, directly overhead now, beat down unmercifully. Up in the stands thousands of people waited to see what would happen next, some of them uneasy, some excited by the blood they'd seen that morning.
She lifted her head and looked between her feet. A group of people was coming across the arena toward her. One of them was Joe Skytop.
They'd dressed him as a gladiator, the kind called a secutor, with a flaring helmet and leather girdle, the sword arm protected by chain mail. Otherwise he was almost nude. His broad massive chest glistened with the oil they'd rubbed on it, and his tree-trunk legs bulged hugely under the leather sandal straps that wound all the way up to the knee.
The man walking beside him, talking and gesticulating earnestly, was Sully Flick. Behind them was a procession of gladiators and centurions. They stopped in front of her. Skytop stared down at her impassively.
Sully handed Skytop a sword. "Okay, Joe baby " he said. "It's up to you."
Skytop lifted the sword. "It's rubber, you bastard," he said. "What the hell can I do with a rubber sword?"
Sully giggled. "Not much, baby, not much. But it's better than nothing, right?"
A limber, elongated man in a turban and loincloth detached himself from the group. He was smeared all over with walnut stain, but the eyes in the triangular face were blue. He carried a curved instrument that looked something like a baling hook.
The turbaned man knelt between Penelope's feet and inspected the ropes that stretched from her ankles to the stakes. They were tied in a curious way, with a long loop knotted into each one. He grabbed the loops and tugged. Penelope felt her legs spreading farther apart.
"Yeah, they'll hold," the turbaned man said. "You're gonna get some shot, Sully."
Skytop gave a choked cry of fury. His big body tensed.
"Don't try it, Skytop!" Sully said sharply. The centurions raised their hidden shotguns. Skytop relaxed.
"That's better, Joe boy," Sully said. "Behave and you'll keep the Baroness alive a little bit longer. She's counting on you, baby." He snickered.
"All right, Sully," the Baroness said wearily, "what's it all about?"
Sully pushed his sunglasses up on his stubby nose. "Skytop's your, whaddayacallit, champion. You know, like your faithful servant. He's gonna fight off all these gladiators to save you from a horrible fate. He puts on a good show, maybe he postpones it for an hour or two. Of course, in the end he loses. Three of those guys with the pitchforks pin him to the ground like a pig on a spit."
"And what's the horrible fate he tries to save me from?"
"That's where Ringo comes in." He gave the turbaned man a playful punch in the biceps. "Ringo's the best animal trainer on the West Coast."
"Aw, Sully," Ringo said modestly.
"I mean it," Sully said.
Hatred flared in the Baroness' eyes. "Is Ringo the one who trained the leopard to attack the girl?"
"It wasn't easy," Ringo said. "It's against their natural instincts. And Sully only gave me a couple of week's notice."
"And you supplied the lions, too?"
"Yeah, I can get anything," Ringo said. "Bears, bulls, monkeys, giraffes, you name it. Only there hasn't been much call at the major studios lately. Economy wave. I gotta eat. And so do the animals. Know what it costs to feed a hippo?"
Sully said, "If you think the leopard act was box office, you should see what Ringo's got planned for you."
Skytop tensed again. The centurions raised their shotguns.
"Take a look," Ringo said, pointing his hook at the far end of the arena.
Penelope raised herself as far as the ropes would permit. She saw the colossal gray shapes lined up in front of the distant barricade. There were six of them.
Elephants. Six stupendous African elephants, with great flapping ears and curving six-foot tusks. They were outfitted in gaily colored circus harnesses. Each mountainous back carried a howdah in the shape of a crenelated castle.
Now Penelope recognized the hook that Ringo carried. It was an elephant goad.
"And what have you trained the elephants to do?" the Baroness said.
Sully answered for Ringo. "Pull, baby, pull. It'll be the greatest spread shot ever put on film."
Ringo was looking pleased with himself. "Four of the elephants fasten cables to those loops on your arms and legs," he said. "We slash the ropes tying you to the stakes. Then the elephants all pull in opposite directions. They pull you apart."
"It's a novelty act," Sully said. "Like you get drawn and quartered, but in an unusual way."
"I always liked to be original," the Baroness said tartly.
Skytop growled, "I've got an unusual way to kill you, Sully. We Indians used to do it to prisoners with a dull knife."
"Don't act up, Skytop, or we blow you apart right now," Sully said. "Then we go to the part about the elephants right away."
The gladiators were warming up like athletes, joking among themselves. The ones dressed as mirmilliones made practice thrusts with their swords. The net men were trying out different casts, throwing so that the nets were spread out by the small lead weights strung along the edges.
Sully was giving them last-minute instructions. "Now don't cut him up too fast. Make him last. I wanna see blood, but give him a lot of photogenic slashes on the chest and shoulders. Don't cripple him. I want him to go down fighting when the net men stick their tridents into him."
"Can we cut the broad?" one of the sword men asked.
"Sure, if you can get past Skytop and his rubber sword," Sully laughed.
The gladiators withdrew a short distance and formed up in ranks. Sully was off to the side of the arena, out of camera range, sitting in his canvas director's chair. He raised a megaphone to his face. "Action!" he shouted.
A young hood with a sword and shield ran forward, grinning. He dueled with Skytop, slapping the flat edge of his steel against Skytop's rubber blade. He plinked Skytop with the point of his sword, opening up a wound in Skytop's chest. Skytop bellowed, and lunged reflexively with the rubber sword. The hood staggered backward, out of camera range, as if he'd been hit.
"Next!" Sully yelled.
The next gladiator rushed toward Skytop, swinging his sword. He hacked at the big Cherokee's face. A gash opened up. Skytop didn't seem to notice. He tossed his rubber sword into the air, spinning. The gladiator looked after it. Skytop caught it by the point, and without pause, swung the metal handle at his opponent's face.
It caught him by surprise. He yelled in pain. A split second later he had a broken wrist and Skytop had his sword. He was still staring stupidly at his wrist when the blade went into his belly, slid like a butter knife between his lower rib cage and hip bone and poked out through his back. Skytop put a big sandaled foot on the man's belly and pushed. The sword pulled free and the body fell backward.
"Get that sword away from him!" Sully screamed.
Two gladiators ran obediently forward. One was dressed as a Gaul, in a bearskin, carrying a spear. The other was a sword-and-shield man.
Skytop sized up the situation right away. The Gaul's spear gave him a better reach. He was the more dangerous of the two.
He waited until they'd almost reached him, then flung his sword. It pierced the Gaul's neck. The Gaul's charge carried the body forward. He fell into the sand, the tip of his spear just inches fro
m Skytop.
Skytop grabbed the spear by the point and reversed it with a quick spin. He drove it into the swordsman just in time. The man shrieked in agony and fell writhing. Skytop pulled the spear free, and picked up the dropped sword.
He had two weapons now. He turned to slash the Baroness' ropes, but the rest of the gladiators were all running toward him in a group, brandishing their weapons and yelling like lunatics.
"Kill him, kill him!" Sully yelled through the megaphone.
He met them with spear and sword, bracing the butt of the spear in his sword hand and letting go to swing every once in a while. They were ordinary city thugs, used to guns. They weren't versed in hand-to-hand combat. Skytop was.
He slashed and thrust, whirling and dodging to keep them from getting behind him. The sand turned bright with blood. A secutor stared in consternation at the stump of his wrist. The hand, still clutching the sword, lay at his feet. Another swordsman crawled around on the sand, his leg tendons severed. A retiarius got a bright idea and flung his fishnet. Skytop plucked it out of the air and swung it like a whip. The lead weights caught the retiarius across the throat and whipped around his neck. Skytop pulled the man to him like a fish on a line and impaled him on his sword.
A dozen men lay dead or wounded on the sand. Skytop looked around for more opponents. The remaining gladiators had withdrawn to a respectful distance.
"We can't get near him, Sully!" one of them complained.
The centurions were vaulting over the safety barrier, running toward him with their shotguns. Skytop began shifting to one side so that the pellets that killed him wouldn't hit the Baroness.
Sully's amplified voice came booming over the arena. He must have got to the public address system. "Don't shoot him, don't shoot, you jerks!"
The shotgun men stopped, confused.
"Get back… outa camera range! We can use that footage!"
The gladiators began grumbling. None of them was going to take a chance on rushing Skytop again.
There was an insane laugh over the loudspeaker. "Here come the elephants, Skytop!" Sully thundered.
